


Cor Meum

by izabellwit, littlemisslol



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon), Varian and the Seven Kingdoms
Genre: Action/Adventure, Aka Swearing, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Angst and Humor, Assorted Swashbuckling, Banter, Betrayal, Eventual Romance, Found Family, Gen, General action-y precarious situations, Inspired by Varian and the Seven Kingdoms - Kaitlyn Ritter & Anna Lencioni, M/M, Minor Violence, Team as Family, Warnings for naughty no-no words, Y'all ready for some SKY PIRATES, and very brief implied child abuse, because Donella was not a good parent oops, get ready folks, lots of team bonding, slowburn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:14:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 41,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25056022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/izabellwit/pseuds/izabellwit, https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlemisslol/pseuds/littlemisslol
Summary: In a world of floating cities and steamships, Captain Rapunzel runs the fastest ship in all the skies. But this rowdy crew is not without its secrets—or its treasures— and Hugo, newly-hired, is ready to discover them all. Now if only Varian, the whip-smart lead engineer, would get out of his way.A TTS & 7k AU of epic proportions, featuring cool fight scenes, steampunk machinery, and an inevitable romance.
Relationships: Hugo/Varian (Disney: Varian and the Seven Kingdoms), Rapunzel & Hugo, Rapunzel & Varian (Disney), Varian & Hugo & Nuru & Yong
Comments: 51
Kudos: 161





	1. City of the Sun

“Need a hand there, goggles?” 

The voice, barely audible over the sound of welding and banging metal of the mechanic’s shop, draws Varian’s attention away from the chaos of the engine above him. With a beleaguered sigh he stares mournfully up at the greasy gears and other assorted guts of the machine. His eyes flick down to see a pair of black, perfectly polished leather boots waiting patiently near the edge of the suspended machine, and it takes more than a little willpower not to groan.

Varian grits his teeth. He does _not_ have time for this. He only has until tomorrow to fix this stupid thing before the ship’s due to take off; he’s already been working on it for three days, and if he can’t get it running the Captain is going to _flip_. 

The leather boots that Varian can see past the edge of the engine shift slightly, and Varian can feel more than see the light kick of someone else’s shoe against his own. The large silver buckles on the boots flash just enough to be annoying, and Varian makes a face. The voice drifts back down to where Varian has hidden himself under the engine, and it takes everything in him not to groan.

“Hey, can you hear me under there?” it says impatiently. 

Varian plants his back a little more firmly on the rolling mechanic’s bed he’s lying on and pulls on the outer casing of the engine, rolling himself out from under the machine with a small grunt. 

He slams his eyes shut against the sudden change in light, blinding even behind the protective lens of his goggles. When he opens them again he can see a tall figure leaning over him, blocking out most of the sunlight coming in from the skylights embedded in the iron ceiling of the shop. Varian cricks his neck, looking around in a last desperate attempt to ignore the person hovering over him. 

The mechanic’s shop is certainly distracting enough, stuffed full of people just as grease-covered and irritated as Varian, all of them suffering together in the heat caused by welding and hard work. Made of thick stone and wrought iron, the large space offers room to spread out that you just didn’t get in airships, making it the best place for Varian to do his work with big projects like engine twelve’s sad, hollowed out corpse. Large windows dot the ceiling like stars, offering light and just the smallest hint of the blue skies above. The shop is, if anything, supposed to be a safe haven for the mechanically minded. People aren’t supposed to try and _talk to each other_ , which is something Varian cherishes. Nothing worse than trying to piece together penny-sized cogs or a delicate engine part only to be interrupted by a nosy crewmate. 

Which is why blondie being here is certainly quite the insubordination. Society has _rules,_ damn it _._

Varian wipes his gloves clean off his apron before pushing his goggles up onto the top of his head, linking his fingers and stretching his arms out towards the ceiling. He lets his arms flop back down with a sigh, and finally locks eyes with the person above him. 

Varian arches a brow, and the blond’s smile splits just a little wider. 

“I’m sorry?” Varian asks, not exactly friendly. By the Maker, he _really_ doesn’t have time for this. 

“I asked if you needed a hand,” the blond replies, a glint in his green eyes. He’s _tall_ , is Varian’s first impression, tall enough that he’s likely got at least a head of height on Varian if they were to stand shoulder to shoulder. Varian would say he’s muscular, but there’s the sneaking suspicion that it’s really more the black leather coat that makes the teen in front of him look that way. Varian has employed similar tactics in the past; he knows the tricks. Get a big coat with a large, pointed collar and massive cuffs and _boom_ , suddenly you’re twice as intimidating as you were before. It's a good coat, though, if a bit heavy for Corona weather. Shining silver buttons line the length of the jacket, and it has deep pockets that Varian can only assume are full of fun little _tricks_ from experience. The silver continues on the blond’s vest as well, a trim piece of green fabric with polished silver buttons and a faint embroidery. 

Blond hair, chopped in a rough undercut, frames the other teen’s thin face in an annoyingly aesthetic kind of way, held back from his face by the wire frames of the other teen’s circular glasses. Green eyes meet Varian’s own, and the blond smirks at Varian’s blatant staring. 

In all honesty, he almost looks out of place, dressed up just a _little_ too much to be skulking around with the grease-monkeys Varian calls his contemporaries. If anything, the quick flash of a silver rapier on the blond’s belt cinches it. Whoever this teenager is, he’s either from money, or _pretending_ to be from money, both of which are irritating in their own way. 

Varian bites the inside of his cheek, trying to find a way to reply _politely_. 

“No, thank you,” is what he spits out instead, grabbing at the engine and starting to pull himself back under it. The blond’s heavy boot slams down on top, the mechanic’s bed jerking to a halt, and Varian’s teeth click uncomfortably together at the force of it. The engine swings a little dangerously from where it’s suspended between two large chains, holding it high so the underside of it is easily accessible. Varian stops mid-yank and _glares_. 

The boy just smiles, annoyingly unphased.

“Aw, c’mon, goggles,” the blond says with that same irritating smile, green eyes bright behind his round glasses. “Isn’t that a little heavy for a tiny thing like you? Don’t you want the extra help?”

Varian huffs in offense, already done with this conversation. The shop’s agonizingly hot, even with the windows thrown open. It’s loud, dirty, generally rather unpleasant with the stink of grease and sweat, and though it’s the best place to work in the dockyard it’s still chaotic at best. Varian only has another eighteen hours to figure out what the problem with this engine is before they’re due to take off from Corona again, and Varian knows it’s his ass on the line if the work doesn’t get done. He doesn’t have _time_ for some uppity asshole to think he knows more than Varian and try to upstage everything. 

“I have a name, you know,” Varian says, coldly, looking the guy dead in the eye. 

“Can I know it?” The blond winks at him. He seems to think he’s making headway.

“Nope,” Varian replies with a peppy smile. There’s a moment of shock, and that’s all he needs to yank his mechanic’s bed out from under the blond’s black boot, disappearing back under the engine. 

_Finally._ Back where he belongs, the annoyance avoided. Varian scratches at his face idly, bringing his googles back down over his eyes, setting his mind back onto his work. He peers up into the open panel at the bottom of the engine, noting the interweaving cogs that should _in theory_ be working by now. After the bloody pirate attack a week ago, engine twelve, or specifically this part of it, had taken a hell of a beating. The Captain had pushed her too far _again_ , causing something inside to rupture and spew parts across the engine room floor like a geyser, and in turn Varian has spent the last three days desperately trying to piece it back together. Something is still wrong with it, though, and it’s driving Varian _insane_ trying to figure it out.

“Come on, darling,” Varian mutters to himself, taking a wrench to one of the bolts. “Talk to me.” 

He gets no answer. Instead a small plume of dust and grease spurts out of the machine onto Varian’s face, only just splattering onto his goggles instead of his skin. _Lovely_. He grits his teeth, reaching in to really give it a piece of his mind—

“It’s the bolt on the timing belt,” the blond pipes up from beyond the engine. “If you leave it as-is, it’s going to fall apart the minute you try to take off.”

…Oh. Varian looks up to the timing belt, tucked away neatly near the upper left side of the engine, and lo and behold, one of the bolts holding it in place is missing. _Damnit_. Varian peeks up through the engine, up to where the top panel’s been removed as well, and just catches a glint of green eyes peering down at him through the guts of the machine. There’s a minute of debate in him, how much does he value his pride? Enough to admit he was wrong to this irritating little—?

“Look, pipsqueak,” the blond says, his voice filtering through the cogs and gears. “I know machines. Just trust that I know what I’m talking about?” 

Varian clenches his hand around the wrench, wondering how long he can go without committing murder. Maybe if he made it look like an accident…?

He rolls back out from under the engine again. The wheels make a protesting noise against the cobblestone floor. This time when he comes to a stop, he sits up properly, shoving his goggles back up to rest haphazardly on his forehead. 

“Can I _help you_?” Varian finally spits. His ire only seems to encourage the blond, who grins. 

“I mean, it seems like I’m helping you,” Green-eyes says, idly pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. How he’s dealing with the heat of the day in that giant coat Varian would never guess, but that’s besides the point. Varian rocks his weight a bit, thinking, the mechanic’s bed under him shifting with the movement. Decided, he finally pushes himself up to his feet, noting with irritation that the blond is, in fact, at least a foot taller. Scowl setting deep on his face, Varian turns away and kicks at the mechanic’s bed roughly, sending it rolling back under the engine for safekeeping. 

There’s a chattering noise of gears and steam, and Varian feels a weight land on his shoulder. He only just adapts to the heavy weight of copper, steel, and brass, before he feels his first creation clambering for his attention. Varian absently reaches up to pat at the metal body of his pet, scratching at a place between the exposed gears of Ruddiger’s ears that he knows the little automaton likes best. Ruddiger coos out a puff of steam, settling his weight onto Varian’s shoulders fully, the automaton having jumped from on top of the engine. Aperture eyes snap open and close with content, breaking the glowing green light of Ruddiger’s eyes for just a second as the raccoon-shaped automaton purrs. 

The blond lets out a little huff of a laugh when he sees Varian and Ruddiger together, green eyes flicking between them. He gestures to his eyes, biting his lip. “Look at that,” he says, grinning. “You’re twins!” 

Sure enough, when Varian peers into the polished brass sides of the engine, he can see that his eyes are ringed with grime and soot, giving him a distinctly raccoon look. Varian scowls at his reflection, turning back around with an angry gesture of the wrench in his hand.

“If you weren’t right about the engine—” Varian begins to threaten, but the blond cuts him off.

“But I was,” he says with a smarmy smile. “Right, I mean.” 

Varian can feel his eye twitch.

“You’re rightly _annoying_ ,” he grumps, crossing his arms. Ruddiger makes an offended puff of steam at the movement, digging mechanical hands into the shoulder of Varian’s shirt a little tighter. Varian grits his teeth a little as tiny claws dig into his skin through the thin fabric. 

The other boy holds his hands up in an innocent gesture, head cocking to the side. “I know what I’m doing, all right? Let me help fix the engine.” Green eyes glow with mirth as the boy looks down at the engine again. “Because, clearly, you seem to need it.” 

Varian scowls, his hands clenching into fists, fingers digging into the leather of his gloves. The wrench in his hand is temptingly heavy, but Varian simply grits his teeth and ignores the plots for murder, taking a deep breath. Instead he reaches up and over the engine, using the wrench to try and tighten the bolt on the timing belt one last time. It creaks a little dangerously, but Varian knows it’ll hold. He designed it himself, after all.

Ruddiger keeps an eye on the blond behind Varian, making curious noises, a soft clicking sound that mixes well with the quiet ticking of his clockwork heart. Varian has to use two hands on the wrench to get the bolt tight, giving it a few violent tugs. The blond is watching him—Varian can feel eyes on the back of his neck—but Varian steadfastly ignores him, either out of focus or spite… or maybe both. 

Work done, he finally turns back around to the blond, stepping forward with a threatening gesture of the wrench. 

“Look,” Varian says, pointing the wrench an inch away from green eyes. “I don’t particularly care for your _tone,_ so—”

“Varian!” a third voice calls, and Varian stills mid-rant. Both Varian and the irritating boy next to him turn, locking eyes with a young woman—a _familiar_ woman. Her grin is a mile wide, bright as the sun and twice as warm. Her purple dress swirls around her ankles, cinched tight at the waist by a black corset, with billowing sleeves of white fabric. Her green eyes crinkle when she sees the two of them turn to her, scrunching up the spattering of freckles on her face and wrinkling her button nose. She’d look a proper lady, she certainly holds herself with the decorum expected of one, if not for the pixie cut she’d chopped her hair into. It’s stylish, with shorter sides and a longer top, nearly defying gravity in the way it fluffs up from her head into a windblown wave. 

Varian notes, with quite a bit of amusement, that she’s holding onto a pair of flats in one hand. Barefoot again, then. _Classic_. 

“Rapunzel,” Varian sighs, dropping the arm holding the wrench back down to his side. He can feel the embarrassment of being caught picking fights seizing him. He’s eighteen now, he _really_ should know better, and Rapunzel is nothing if not determined to keep him on the straight and narrow. 

“Who’s this?” Rapunzel says with interest, her eyes flicking between Varian and the other teenager. The taller boy seems to stiffen under her gaze, which is unsurprising. Rapunzel is notorious in these parts, and in the dockyard especially. Varian rubs at the back of his neck in the presence of his Captain, and can feel his cheeks burn red.

“He was just leaving—” Varian starts to say, turning away from her to glare at the blond, but Rapunzel cuts him off.

“Oh, did you make a friend?” she asks, coming closer and leaning on Varian’s shoulder. It’s infuriating the way she’s taller than he is, even after his growth spurt. 

“Sure,” Varian says through grit teeth. “A friend. We’ll call him that.” 

Rapunzel brightens at that, and Varian can already sense the trouble on the horizon. “And you are?”

The boy shrugs. “New.”

There’s a pause, but Rapunzel pushes forward. “Oh! How are you liking Corona, then?” she asks the blond, her grin a mile wide at the thought of Varian having _friends_. Varian’s not sure if he’s offended or not, really. 

“Loving it,” the blond says. “The City of the Sun could never disappoint.” 

Varian wants to roll his eyes, but Rapunzel leans further onto him, putting more of her weight onto his shoulder in a silent bid for him to behave himself. He goes along with it—she’s typically right in these sorts of situations. 

“Glad to hear it,” Rapunzel grins. “What brings you to our fair city, anyways?” 

“I’m here looking for work, actually,” the blond says quickly. “Just got back from a contracted expedition to Vardaros, so now I’m on the hunt for another engineering job.” 

Rapunzel’s face brightens, and Varian grows concerned. He knows that she’s been contemplating hiring extra hands for their next expedition, seeing how important it is, but there’s no way she would actually—

“Well, you’re in luck!” Her face splits into a wide smile. “We’re actually looking for a junior engineer, and any friend of Varian’s is a friend of ours. We’d be glad to have you aboard, if you’re willing.” 

Varian’s face must do something funny, since Rapunzel’s full weight is near crushing him now. He tries to catch her eye, but she’s ignoring him with a grin. Rapunzel knows _exactly_ what she’s doing and Varian can’t help but feel the slight pulse of irritation sink into his gut. _She’s planning something_ , he thinks, glaring at her as she steadfastly ignores his gaze. Only the Maker knows what goes on in that woman’s head, honestly. 

“Well, can’t say no to that,” Varian’s new most-hated-person says.

By the Maker, what did Varian do to deserve this? Has he _really_ been such a terrible person to deserve this kind of treatment from the universe? Honestly, you’d think he was a horrible murderer in a past life for the kind of penance he’s paying in this one. 

“Perfect!” Rapunzel crows with a clap of her hands. “Varian can show you how to get back to the _Aphelion_ —right, Varian?” 

“Yes, Captain.” Varian grunts, idly wondering if he could brain himself with the wrench in his hand in such a way that would guarantee he wouldn’t survive. Rapunzel doesn’t seem to mind, finally letting up on Varian and gently pushing away from him with one last squeeze of his shoulder.

“Alright, you two,” she says, winking to Varian as she leaves. “Just wanted to stop by and see how you were doing— I’ll see you _both_ back at the ship! Play nice!” 

Varian can’t help but feel like he’s been played. 

If Varian had his way, he’d turn around and fire the blond here and now. Varian’s the head of the engineering section of the _Aphelion_ — that’s got to count for something, right? In theory it should, but Varian knows that Rapunzel, as Captain, had final say in everything. If she wants to be a busy-body and force Varian to try and make friends, then by the Maker, it’s happening whether Varian likes it or not. 

In this case? It is decidedly in the _not_ category. 

He turns to the blond, who looks back with a smug smile. Varian can feel his face scrunch up in distaste at it, and knows that the twitch in his eye is probably back with a vengeance. Ruddiger chirps with contentment on his shoulder, idly pawing at his hair in an attempt to calm his human down. It doesn’t work. Varian sighs, and finally sets the wrench down on a nearby table, jabbing a finger at the other teenager. 

“I don’t like you,” is all he says. “But if Rapunzel says you’re in, then you’re in, I guess.” 

That stupid fucking grin gets wider, and Varian wants to punch it. 

“Who are you, then?” Varian asks, trying for more neutral territory. If they’re going to be stuck together for the next six months once the _Aphelion_ takes flight, then he wants to at least _try_ to work towards something non-hostile. 

“Your new crewmate, obviously,” the blond shoots back, and Varian loses all sense of decorum at that point. There’s a beat of silence as Varian tries to reel his temper in, and another as he tries to relax his jaw enough to say something that _won’t_ get him arrested. 

“In that case, you should know that you’re speaking to your boss… mister _junior_ engineer.” 

The blond splutters, and Varian can’t help but give a little smirk of his own. Nothing better than reminding people of his position, the one he’d clawed for for _years_ before Rapunzel finally gave in.

“Wait, what?” Varian’s new underling asks, going a shade paler. 

“My name is Varian,” he says, the smirk growing larger and larger. He brings a hand up to the center of his chest, fingers splayed slightly. “Lead Engineer of the _Aphelion_ , and _your_ new boss. So, tell me, glasses.” _Oh_ , this was so much fun. “Who are _you_?” 

Green-eyes seems to know when he’s dug himself a hole he can’t climb out of, and for the first time there’s something other than an irritating smirk on his face. If anything, Varian would say he looks annoyed. The thought of finally managing to wipe that smirk off the blond’s face is _delicious_ , and it does wonders for Varian’s mood. Varian sticks a hand out, much like Rapunzel had, and while the blond glares at it, he still takes Varian’s smaller hand in his own. 

“Hugo,” the blond grits out, holding Varian’s hand maybe just a little too tight. It’s still worth it to see this boy _squirm_ though.

Varian waits, but the older boy—Hugo—says nothing else, and after a moment Varian draws his hand away. “Good talk.” That’s that, he supposes. 

A pause, and then Varian shrugs and moves away, looking back to the engine. Screws in place, broken pipe replaced, timing belt bolted... it’s about as fixed as it can get. Varian reaches up and slams the top back down with a loud clang. Hugo _jumps._ Varian grins, and kneels down to lock the top back into place.

Ruddiger chitters in his ear, scolding; Varian shakes him off and straightens back to his feet, peeling off his gloves and shoving one hand back through his hair. Ugh, city sweat and oil. He can _taste_ it. “Well,” Varian says, resigned. “Might as well make yourself useful, I guess. Help me push this back to the dockyard.” Hugo opens his mouth but Varian cuts him off. “And if I hear _one more comment_ about my physical prowess—!” He pats the wrench twice with a sweet smile, the threat more than obvious. 

Hugo closes his mouth. He’s grinning. By the Maker, even when he’s quiet, Varian can practically hear what Hugo wants to say anyway. This is already a disaster; what the hell is Rapunzel thinking?

He has a sudden and vivid flashback to her winking at him, and shudders without knowing why.

Ruddiger coos at him with a puff of steam. Varian tugs at Ruddiger’s ear in return, annoyed with the chiding—he knows how to play nice, thanks, why does no one have any faith in him?—and then walks to the shopkeeper, thus far ignored in the back of the workroom. “How much for the parts?”

He pays for the replacements and manages to haggle for a cart, and in a few minutes’ time he and Hugo have winched the engine down and rigged it up for transport. Varian braces himself against the cart handle and sighs. “Westside dock,” he tells Hugo, squinting sadly at the streets through the large double doors of the shop. It’s market day. The crowds are _crazy._ This is going to suck. “Pier 48.”

“You sure you know the way, goggles?”

“It’s ‘boss,’ actually,” Varian replies sweetly, and grins with all his teeth at the way Hugo winces. _Hah_. Varian could get used to this. 

They exit the repair shop to a faceful of steam, and Varian coughs hard, waving the smoke from his face as he and Hugo shove their way into the crowd, the cart rattling loudly on the uneven cobble. Corona at midday is as bustling as ever, the city life in full swing. Whole families wander the streets as merchant carts and stores push out their wares; steam-powered bikes rocket past, their riders laughing high and bright. In the distance, Varian can hear the ever-present screech of the train whistles, the trails of steam drifting up from the stations. Above them, the sunlight warps and twists, broken apart by the furious rattle of passing trains and the railroad looping high above their heads in arches and spindly bridges. 

Varian squints against the light and shades his face, elbowing Hugo hard to get his attention. The other boy looks almost lost in thought, staring up—his eyes tracking the trains as they pass, looking almost blinded by the sheer gleam of the city in motion. “We’re heading right,” Varian explains, raising his voice above the din, and waves his pocket watch at Hugo’s face, tapping the compass in the upper corner. “Come on.”

Hugo pulls his gaze away and follows, and together they push the cart through the streets, slowly but surely carving a path for the dockyard. When they finally break through the main crowd, Varian pushes them toward the side-streets, shadowy and empty and safe from wandering feet. If they hurry, he thinks, they might make it to the dockyard before the heat really sets in. He gives Ruddiger one last absent pat and starts to pick up the pace.

Hugo is slowing, though, trailing behind, and then for a brief moment he stops completely, hand slipping away from the cart. Varian yanks the cart to a stop, glancing back, ready to give the other a piece of his mind—but then he sees Hugo’s face. Varian follows his gaze, and closes his mouth. He understands now: in the break between the buildings he can see the whole upper half of Corona, the spires of the Sun’s temple and the curving arches of the bridges rising high over the city, shining bright and glossy in the sunlight. It’s designed to look like the sun crest, if seen from directly above—a tourist favorite. 

“First time in the city?” Varian wonders, and when Hugo eyes him, just shrugs, Ruddiger chattering loudly on his shoulder. “You’re staring.”

“It’s bright,” Hugo says, dryly. 

“And that would be why it’s called the city of the Sun.” Varian blows out a hard breath, trying to get sweat-soaked bangs out of his face. He plants his hands on the cart rail and starts pushing again. A moment’s pause, and then Hugo joins him. “But no, seriously, who are you? You’re already hired or whatever—” Damn Rapunzel for that, now Varian has to deal with this jerk for _six months_ , “—but why are you even here?”

“Luck,” Hugo says, which is such an obvious lie Varian outright rolls his eyes at him. “Money. Look, goggles, I came here for a fresh start, so—” He gestures. “Let’s just _not_ do the whole interrogation thing and say we did, okay?”

Varian presses his lips together, but lets it drop. As irritating as Hugo is—well. Varian understands fresh starts. And the money issue. If it was someone prying into _his_ reasons, then… 

“Fine, fine.” Varian says, and turns his head away, only just catching the way Hugo startles from the corner of his eye. He almost looks surprised, Varian thinks, but when he glances back again Hugo just looks as smug as ever, not even out of breath from pushing the cart. His hair is even still slicked perfectly back. 

Maybe his imagination? Well, whatever; Varian hates it either way.

It’s not far to the docks, and Varian knows the path like the back of his hand; by the time the midday heat really starts sinking in (and Hugo, in that stupid leather coat, is noticeably starting to sweat— _hah_ , serves him right), they’ve reached the edge of the city. It’s quieter here, the rumble of the crowd replaced with distant whistles and rhythmic banging, the symphony of a dockyard hard at work. 

Varian heaves the cart to a rolling stop by the stairs, waving at Hugo to step back, and cups a hand around his mouth. “Xavier!” he shouts down at the shipyard, pitching his voice high. Ruddiger props up on his head and yawns, puffing steam like a smoke signal. “Send Cass up here, would you? I’ve got that engine part fixed!” 

“Oh, wonderful!” Xavier waves back. “I’ll send her up— we’ll get it reinstalled right away! Grab Yong for me?”

“Where is he?” 

“On the ship!”

“Got it!” Ruddiger crawls from his shoulder down into his arms; Varian cradles the racoon close—ouch, hot metal—and finally looks back to Hugo, humming. “Well, come on then.”

“Yong?” Hugo wonders aloud, as Varian makes his way for the ship. It’s in Pier 48 now, the main dock for repair work, which makes this a longer walk than usual. Damn pirates, punching holes in their ship— who did this _Donella_ think she was? For someone with such a fearsome reputation, they’d gotten away pretty light…

“Xavier’s assistant,” Varian explains, clutching Ruddiger to his chest and hopping down the stairs two at a time. He hears a snicker, and whips around to glare. Hugo looks away, one hand covering his mouth. Varian narrows his eyes. “Xavier was that man down there, he runs the engines, and— would you _stop_ laughing?”

“Sorry,” Hugo says, with a grin that says he isn’t sorry at all. “You were saying?”

“Okay, I’m not doing this.” Varian spins on his heel, ignoring him. “Come on, it’s just around the corner. She’s a little... _battered_ right now, some hull damage, but we’re set to leave tomorrow— and I mean _tomorrow_ — time is money with this next shipment, understand?”

Hugo smiles, leaning closer to Varian. “What’s so special about it?” he asks, one eyebrow raised. “Is it expensive?”

Expensive, one of a kind, irreplaceable—there’s a lot of words Varian could use for it. If the _Aphelion_ ’s last cargo had been valuable, this next shipment is near-priceless. “That’s on a need-to-know basis—” Varian says tartly, “—and until we’re in the air, _you_ don’t need to know. Now, will you be ready?”

Hugo shrugs. “I’m ready to go now.”

Varian blinks at that, looking Hugo up and down. Even Ruddiger lifts his head from his nap to sniff a disbelieving puff of steam. No luggage, just the clothes on his back and the sword on his hip. “Um… you sure?”

Hugo’s smirk widens. “Aw. Worried for me, goggles?” 

Ha- _ha_ , nevermind. Varian pivots back around. “Nope.” He is not allowed to punch his new assistant. He is _not_ allowed to punch his assistant. Rapunzel would be disappointed. There would be _lectures_. She would make _charts_. Not worth it. “Now, where is that ship—”

He ducks around the corner, stepping out of the way of horse and cart, and then, like the sun splitting the clouds: there she is.

Varian trails to a stop, annoyance already forgotten. He turns, for once wanting to see Hugo’s full reaction. If Hugo had blinked twice at the city, then… “Here we are,” Varian says, grinning now, pride bubbling warm in his chest. “The _Aphelion_!”

Hugo looks, mouth opening, and Varian can just _see_ the rude comment he’s about to make—and then Varian really _does_ grin, wide and bright and smug smug smug, because he can also see the moment Hugo loses all his words entirely. 

Varian has always loved Corona, despite everything—the spiny skyline, the arching bridges, the whistling steam and winding roads curling up to the temple like a conch shell. Varian has lived in this air and breathed this city for all his life, and he loves it with all he is— but of all the places in the city, the dockyards, and the ships they harbor, are where his heart truly lies. 

If the city is bright, then the dockyards are _blinding_. They sit on the very edge of the city limits, the cliff-face drop of the flying city. The copper paneling that makes up the dockyard decks has turned near solid-gold in the sunlight, and beyond that edge the whole world falls at their feet. Miles upon miles of dotted green farmland, blocks of gleaming metal towns, curving roads like man-made rivers. The horizon burns gold and blue, the distant silhouette of other flying cities dotting the landscape, poking out from distant clouds. None of the cities fly as high as Corona, of course—the cities of the Sun and Moon are meant to float above all the rest—but it still makes for quite the view. With other airships hanging in the sky, colorful backdrops against the full white clouds, the dockyards are most certainly a sight to behold. 

But the jewel, Varian thinks with a smile, is his ship—Rapunzel’s ship—their home. 

The _Aphelion_. 

She’s a work of art, Varian knows, and she looks it, too. _Aphelion_ is a whole three hundred feet of dark wood and solid brass, long and sleek and sharp as any blade. Her half-moon windows are stained glass and shining; decorative copper and silver wires wind down her front and all across her sides like trailing vines, or maybe wings, or maybe the unfurling edges of the sun. She’s got four sails and an envelope made of the best weave, the cloth of the balloon so thick it’s near impossible to cut, set to hold them afloat for nearly two decades even if the engines and the fires both die. A heavy copper turbine sits at her back; the sails, flapping loose in the breeze, are decorated in off-hand embroidery. She’s golden and shining in the sunlight—and it’s _right,_ that Hugo goes dead silent at the sight of her, and Varian can’t help but grin. Because anyone who stops and stares at the _Aphelion_ , anyone who goes breathless at their first glance… well, as annoying as Hugo is, he can’t be too bad, then. Not if he sees the _Aphelion_ for the treasure she is.

She hadn’t always been this way, of course; she’d been a broken thing once, before Rapunzel found the shattered shell of a ship and coaxed life back into her. It’s Rapunzel’s way, after all, to find broken and trapped and hiding things, and bring them out to the light—but Rapunzel had asked Lance to do the tarp weave, and Varian had built the metalwork, and in the end, it was all of them, together, that brought the _Aphelion_ to the skies, blinding and beautiful and larger than life.

Varian steps away and sets Ruddiger down on the cobble, still grinning wide and pleased at Hugo’s shock, and waves up to the small figures settled around on the _Aphelion_ ’s balcony. Rapunzel—standing at the helm with Eugene, Nuru, and Yong—looks over, and she leans over the railing to wave back. Her eyes draw to Hugo next, and even from this distance, Varian can see her smile. 

Varian turns back to Hugo, radiating smugness. “Well?”

Hugo blinks fast and shakes his head. “Well,” he echoes. He shakes his head again, and then he gives a little laugh. “Well.”

“What do you think?” Varian presses, intent. “Isn’t she gorgeous?” And maybe Hugo catches something in that, maybe he can tell Varian really and truly wants an answer, because he looks at Varian, eye to eye, and then— he smiles.

Months later, this memory will stand out to Varian. Years later, Varian will look back on this day in the sun and finally recognize the moment for what it was. A beginning. And an end. 

Their only warning.

It’s bright, the smile Hugo gives him. It’s blinding. But for some reason, something about it makes Varian falter. A chill runs down his spine. His mouth goes dry. Because there is something in that smile—in the curve of it, the sharpness of teeth—something about the way it creases at Hugo’s eyes. It unnerves him. It unsettles him. There is something about it that doesn’t sit quite right, and if Varian had known better, then, perhaps he could have read the smile for what it was. 

But instead Varian looks away, feeling cold and not sure why, telling himself it is just the wind—and beside him, Hugo, his eyes fixed back on the ship— 

Hugo smiles.

“Yes,” he says. “She’s _perfect_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Iza:** Oh, gosh, it's finally here!!
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed this first look at this au!! We have a lot in store, and I can't wait for you guys to see what we've planned! It's gonna be a lot of fun, ahaha. This first chapter in particular is a favorite of mine… reimagining Corona as a steampunk city was DELIGHTFUL. (As well as Rapunzel's ship. Let's be honest, with all the bird imagery in her songs and her artwork, how could we NOT have her captain a flying ship?? In a world where the Princess title doesn't exist, Rapunzel would be a traveler for sure.)
> 
>  **Anna:** It's kicking off lads!! Welcome to our beautiful brain baby, I'm super excited to get this ship launched!! Iza and I are having so much fun playing around in this universe! 
> 
> Our spotify for this fic can be found [here!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5UMJcoECqWJPD05ax3LV3E?si=_J-IVp3iRDanNeVhs61asg) The tracks for this chapter were _I Come With Knives_ by IAMX, _Howl's Moving Castle - Merry Go Round of Life_ by the Vitamin String Quartet, _The End?_ by Hans Zimmer, and finally _Thrift Shop_ also by the Vitamin String Quartet!
> 
> We also have a tumblr! Over [ here!](https://varian-and-the-seven-skies.tumblr.com/) Feel free to ask us anything!
> 
> Any thoughts?


	2. Pieces Set, Start

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Aphelion_ takes to the skies! The game is afoot, and Hugo's determined to win.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all your guys’ support for this new fic! Your comments were a joy to read, and we’re so excited that you guys are excited! We have a whole lot in store for y’all— we hope you guys enjoy!
> 
>  **Warning:** There is mild reference to implied child abuse—nothing explicit or graphic, but please be wary! If there’s anything in this chapter you think we missed, let us know and we’ll add the warning up here.

Standing in the burning midday sun, hand half-shading his eyes, Hugo stares up into the shadow of the _Aphelion_ and thinks: _This is too easy._

He almost feels bad about it, honestly. Like stealing candy from a kid—not that it’s going to stop Hugo from robbing them blind, blah blah blah should have held onto it better—but still. The fact remains that this will be _painfully_ easy. It’s been maybe two hours since he set foot in Corona, and he’s already been hired and secured a place on the ship. Fastest infiltration he’s ever done.

“She’s _perfect_ ,” he says, with a smile that maybe shows a bit too much teeth. Oh, well. Hugo’s probably fine. What does this kid—Var-something, Varitas, Varian?—know of threats and dangers anyway? The cotton-weave shirt, the brass cuff bracers, the worn work-pants and even the shine of his boots; given all that plus the oil and grease streaking his face, and the way he barely even notices, Hugo is almost positive that this kid has never even stepped three feet outside of a workroom. 

Hugo doesn’t have a good opinion of this kid’s instincts, either. After all, it’s taken everything Hugo has not to laugh in his face from the moment he got hired, pint-size here being his new ‘boss’ or no, and the other teen hasn’t even noticed. 

“So?” Hugo says. “Do I get the grand tour?” 

Varian (Hugo is, like, 85% sure it’s Varian) doesn’t react. He seems distracted, staring hard at the ground with a furrow to his brow. He jumps at the sound of Hugo’s voice, and shakes his head hard as if to chase away his own thoughts. At his feet, that creepy little rodent automaton chases circles around them. “What? Oh. Um, yeah. If you want.” He gestures, listless. “It’s, uh… just up the ramp.”

Hugo eyes him, just a bit—where’d the fire go? The sass? The _really annoying_ attitude? — but he doesn’t actually care, in hindsight, so he shrugs and dismisses it, heading up for the ship ramp. The closer he gets, the more impressive the ship looks: Hugo hadn’t been lying, at least, when he’d called her perfect. She’s a mish-mash of colorful cloth-weave and metalwork, and even from here Hugo can tell she’s a labor of love. The _Aphelion_ is… beautiful isn’t a strong enough word for what she is. Stunning, maybe. Ethereal is closer. He can’t even imagine what the work inside looks like. What sort of pipe system do they use? What model are the engines? 

By the Maker, Hugo is almost _excited._

He just barely keeps from bouncing on his feet—he’s not a child, he knows how to control himself—and when he reaches the deck, he takes a moment to step out and turn around, taking it all in. It's huge, wide open and two-tiered, with heavy metal chains and cables of thick braided wire trailing up to the sails and envelope high above. The railing is a mix of shiny brass and dark, reddish wood; the whole deck is varnished with a nice coat of gloss that keeps the wooden planks waterproofed even through the heaviest of storms. Hugo slams his foot down, just to be sure, and— yep. That heavy thunk tells him all he needs to know. No leaky roofs on _this_ ship, no sir.

Gods above, she’s fucking gorgeous. Hugo might be a little bit starstruck. 

“Where to first?” he calls back, still staring up at the sails. Is that _embroidery?_ Holy shit, it totally is. This ship is ridiculous, and Hugo hasn’t even seen the inside yet. “Engines? Captain’s quarters?” A thought strikes him. He keeps his voice casual. “Cargo hold?”

He can hear Varian step up behind him, still quiet. “Well,” the other says, a little dryly. He holds out one arm, and that raccoon automaton of his runs one last time around his feet and then jumps up on his shoulder. Varian rubs at its ears. “I have to find Yong, and you’re stuck with me, so… probably going to start with the library and work our way from there.”

Hugo clicks his tongue, disappointed, but knows better than to argue. He’ll see it all eventually, he knows, and has to bite back another mean smile at the thought. When Varian makes his way for a massive door of intricate iron, Hugo follows him. 

“Yong,” he echoes to himself. “Assistant to engine-man, right?”

“ _Xavier_.” Varian looks up at him, half-hidden in the shadows of the sails, his eyes flashing bright and burning. “Yong is— fire prone, so it works out pretty well for him. You’ll see.” He scowls. “And learn people’s names, would you?”

“Hm.” Hugo makes a show of thinking about it. Leans back on his heels, resting his chin in his hands, humming—and then grins. “No.”

“You—!” 

“Varian!” 

Varian’s eyes snap away from Hugo, and he’s almost sad to see them go. Hugo looks towards where the voice had come from, seeing a younger teenager standing in front of them with her hands on her hips. She’s tall, taller than Varian even which is _hilarious_ . Her curly black hair ripples in the gentle breeze of the dockyard, pulled up in a perfect little up-do that Hugo can already tell takes her _way too long_ in the morning to perfect. She’s got dark skin and amber eyes, and she’s fixing them both with a scrutinizing look, mouth pulling into a low frown when she notices Hugo. She’s wearing a purple tunic cinched tight around her waist by multiple brass-buckle belts, a sash of dark brown silk tied overtop, and dark leggings that look almost black in the sunlight. Her little heeled boots are purple as well — Hugo can sense a bit of a _theme_ with her—and they click against the polished deck as she impatiently taps her foot. 

“Nuru!” Varian says, ignoring her pointed glare. “Haven’t seen Yong by any chance, have you?”

“Afraid not,” she says, eyes flicking from Varian to Hugo. Hugo can’t help but feel the need to size her up, maybe due to the suspicious look in her amber eyes. It’s obvious she doesn’t trust him; if Hugo wasn’t absolutely _certain_ his true identity was still secret he might even feel nervous. Ah, well— something to work on. 

She finally tears her gaze away from scrutinizing Hugo, looking to Varian once again. “Why, are you looking for him?”

“Xavier is—” Varian shrugs. That creepy little automaton on his shoulder makes a mechanical chitter, a puff of steam fluffing out from between the mismatched plating making up its body. Varian doesn’t acknowledge it, his voice strong over the steam. “—and I’m giving our new _junior engineer_ here a quick tour while I look for him.”

The title boils Hugo’s blood, it really does, especially in the self-satisfied way Varian says it. It’s like an insult, this idea that this pipsqueak is suddenly better just because he has some fancy position handed to him by his beloved _Captain_ . As if that makes the fact that Hugo is older, smarter, and _better_ than him null and void. Honestly, _infuriating_ , but Hugo grits his teeth and bears it. Once this is over, once the target’s acquired and the money’s made, Hugo’ll just pitch the annoying little shit off the edge of the ship and watch him fall. It’ll be like a present to himself, a reward for a heist well heist-ed. 

Hugo’s so wrapped up in the _delightful_ image of Varian screaming as he’s tossed over the rails of the top deck, he nearly misses the conversation continuing on in front of him.

“Are you going to introduce us, then?” Nuru says primly. Her glare flicks back to Hugo, who straightens his spine a little under the scrutiny. Something in her makes Hugo wary; he’ll have to keep an eye on her. 

“Oh!” Varian shakes his head. “Duh, obviously. Nuru, this is Hugo, Rapunzel’s new hire for the junior engineer position.” At least this time Varian doesn’t say the title in a way that makes Hugo want to punch him. “Hugo, this is Nuru, our assistant navigator. She’s usually up on the bridge, but you’ll see her around. _Aphelion_ isn’t that big a ship, after all.” 

Understatement of the year, really. The _Aphelion_ is minuscule when compared to basically every other ship in port. Just a tiny trading ship, small and unassuming. _Kinda like the brat who built it_ , Hugo snickers to himself. She might be a well made, ethereally stunning machine, but she’s _small_. Fast too, from what Hugo’s heard. Fast enough to outrun a band of pirates, even—

“A pleasure.” Nuru’s nose wrinkles in a way that makes it obvious this is anything but. Hugo schools his face into a delighted—it’s always so much _fun_ making new friends—and locks eyes with her in a challenge. 

“I’m sure it is,” Hugo smirks. Nuru doesn’t back down, the two of them glaring over Varian’s head. From the corner of his eye, he can see Varian scowl at being ignored, before the younger boy bodily shoves his way between them. 

“Okay, enough of that,” Varian says, putting a hand out to either side, pushing Hugo and Nuru apart. “We’re all going to have to _get along_ if we’re going to be stuck together for six months, right? Can we at least try to be civil?”

Hugo wants to retort with the obvious fact that Varian has been nothing but borderline hostile since they met, but Nuru speaks before he can, taking the stage with ease. She nods once, and steps back, almost diplomatic. 

“Of course,” she says, giving Hugo one last once-over before turning back to Varian. “Have you tried the dining hall for Yong yet? Lance said he was making ginger molasses cookies, and I think Eugene was trying to rope some people into helping him steal some.” 

Varian nods in thought, already moving forward. “Good enough place to start, I suppose.” He gestures for Hugo to follow, and they walk together across the polished deck of the ship, towards the back end where a large portion of the deck raises up into a second level. A large door of iron and brass stands centered on the wall, twin staircases spiraling up on either side. It’s embossed with faint carvings, suns and moons and the occasional star, all winding around a large, interlocking wheel made of solid brass in the very center. The whole thing almost looks like a square bank vault door. It’s certainly over the top, in Hugo’s humble opinion, but it’s also becoming increasingly obvious that the _Aphelion,_ and the crew that sails her, are decidedly _over the top_ in basically everything they do. 

Ruddiger slips off Varian’s shoulders, the little automaton chittering in excitement as it hits the polished deck. The raccoon is gone in a second, scaling up one of the large chains with its weird little metal claws. It looks down on them with neon green eyes, the aperture clicking open and closed as if it were blinking. By the _Maker_ that thing’s creepy; Hugo hates it on principle. 

Varian grunts as he grabs the wheel, turning it with no small amount of effort. The spinning wheel retracts a series of pistons, a small plume of steam puffing out as the door swings open, revealing a long hallway made of the same polished wood as the deck. Large copper lights line the hallway, emitting a cheery glow that bounces off the glittering pipes of metal tucked away near the ceiling, running through the _Aphelion_ like veins through a body. Hugo could almost call it _homey_ , dare he say quaint, with a maroon carpet running down the length of the floor, and redwood walls lined with strips of warm brass.

It seems _Aphelion_ is just as immaculate on the inside as she is on the outside. Hugo can’t help but grin. There’s nothing better than a ship that’s obviously been loved from her very conception. 

Varian leads him on through the narrow halls, deeper into the labyrinth of the ship, roughly gesturing to the occasional doorway. “Library,” he says, pointing to a set of double doors, not faltering a single step.

“Crow’s nest.” An iron spiral staircase, spinning up into the ceiling above.

“Navigation room,” Nuru butts in, gesturing to another door. Varian smiles at that, nods.

“ _Navigation room_ ,” he repeats, as they reach the end of the hallway. There’s another door like the one outside, with the same locking mechanism. Varian turns that one as well, and the first thing Hugo registers when the door opens is _heat_. Both Nuru and Varian continue like there’s nothing wrong, Hugo forced to follow or else get left behind. Through the door lies a metal catwalk, level with the wooden floor. 

The ground, however, dips right away, the catwalk hovering at least three stories high as it crosses the length of the large room. In the very center is a large main engine, quiet for now, but Hugo knows that once _Aphelion_ takes flight it’ll be near deafening. It’s so big Hugo has to crane back his neck to see the top of it, surrounded by a string of metal scaffolding, catwalks and ladders and stairs, an intricate mess of pathways. The heart of the _Aphelion_ is a large monstrosity of iron and brass, a mess of metal panels and pipes, dials and gauges, all covered in the slightest sheen of grease. It’s obvious the heart has been well loved, shined clean and immaculate, but she’s a working thing. There’s dust in her corners, grease and oil in all the little nooks and crannies, dents in her panels and places where her casing is mismatched. 

She’s the most beautiful thing Hugo’s ever seen. 

The room below them is a mess of pipework and wires, weaving down through the many catwalks spider-webbing the large space. They cluster and split at random, and for a second Hugo’s truly shocked. He’s seen main engine rooms before, but never one so… _busy_ . Hugo can’t help but feel awed at seeing an honestly _perfect_ machine, one designed from the ground up with love and dedication. 

Varian strides forwards into the room with the confidence of a man three times his age, and Hugo follows slowly, almost dazed. 

“Main engine room,” Varian says with an air of pride, his voice echoing against the metal walls.

Hugo finds himself following in their footsteps, sandwiched between Varian and Nuru. He doesn’t get the time he’d like to stand and stare; the tour must go on, it seems. The engine block is in the direct middle of the _Aphelion_ , from the looks of it. Across the catwalk they go through another iron door and Hugo once again finds himself surrounded by wood panels and vaulted ceilings. It’s almost like most of the living quarters surround the engine block in a ring, an odd design for a ship. Usually engines get tucked away in the back, closest to the rudder and turbines, hidden from sight. In _Aphelion_ , her beating heart is on display like a piece of art. 

Hugo’s sad to see it go, but he knows he’ll be elbow deep in the guts of that machine soon enough. The thought is enough to tide him over, as they continue Varian’s tour. 

“Cassandra’s office, for the sky guard,” Varian says, passing a large wooden door. Ah, they’re back to the list. “By invitation only.” There’s a few marks that could only be made by throwing knives that are deep in the wood. Hugo thinks that maybe it would be a good idea to avoid that particular door as they move on. 

Finally they get to the end of the hall, and Hugo knows they must have walked the majority of the ship’s length by this point. They come to the final set of doors, a double wide pair of solid redwood with intricate hand-painted flowers decorating the woodwork. There’s the sound of clinking kitchenware from inside, muffled but distinct. 

“Dining hall,” Varian says, with a sense of finality. 

Varian pushes the door open without preamble, gesturing for the other two to follow. Nuru does so without question, and Hugo follows only a step behind. Always good to know where the food comes from, after all. Beyond the door is a large room, decorated in the same style as the rest of the living quarters of the ship; large redwood panels of wood and perfectly polished floors. A large rectangular table takes up half the space, and Hugo can count almost thirty chairs surrounding it. _Small ship, small crew_ , Hugo supposes, though really why anyone would _want_ to eat with their crewmates, he has no idea.

The whole back wall of the room is made of windows, from floor to ceiling. The sunset is just beginning, painting the sky a bright, cheery cherry color. _Red sky at night_ , Hugo thinks to himself, watching as the sunset plays off the brass panels of the rudder peeking up below the large windows. Varian moves further into the dining hall, peeking over to the other side of the large space. 

The other half of the room is a wide open space with couches and side tables, a sitting room of sorts. A large carpet covers the floor there, the mismatched furniture looking well worn but comfortable after years of use; it’s the kind of place where one could sit to read a book and accidentally fall asleep. A large galley window is beyond that, embedded into the wall. Hugo can see the kitchen through it, the sounds of clattering pots and pans coming from within. He logs that information for later, _just_ in case. 

Large pillars of iron support the high ceiling, the paneling almost seeming to curve, and when Hugo looks straight up he can see a perfect dome of glass in the center of the roof, held up by large iron trusses in the ceiling. The fading sunlight streams through it, bright and cheery, casting the whole room in a warm and reddish glow. 

“I guess Yong’s not here,” Varian grumbles, looking around the space with a sigh. “We’ll have to keep— _hey_!” 

Hugo only just sees Varian get tugged behind a couch, the flash of a small hand around his wrist. Nuru lets out a small laugh, gesturing for Hugo to follow as she too disappears behind the ornate velvet backing of the couch. Hugo doesn’t _do_ hiding behind furniture like a child, so instead he opts for leaning over from the side. He bites the inside of his cheek, seeing Varian, Nuru, and a smaller boy all giggling like a bunch of idiots, sitting on the floor without a care. 

“Eugene said to wait for the signal,” the boy says, red eyes alight with mischief. “And then I’m supposed to cause a distraction!” With that the kid reaches into his red vest, drawing out— 

Holy shit.

“Is that dynamite?” Nuru chokes out. “Yong, we told you after last time that you weren’t allowed that anymore!”

“She’s right,” Varian says, gently taking the dynamite from the kid— Yong? Hugo’s pretty sure this one’s Yong. Little pyro— Hugo likes him already. Everything from the kid’s wide smile to his wild hair, black and nearly standing on its ends as if he’s been caught in an explosion, is eye-catching. He’s _short_ , laughably so, shaped like a little bowling ball with all that baby fat. He can’t be older than fourteen, Hugo thinks — just an _infant_ , really. His big eyes are _red_ too, as vivid and bright as maraschino cherries, an oddity in Hugo’s experience. Hugo’s noticing a trend here: apparently the crew of the _Aphelion_ all seem to be color-coded. The kid, for example, wears a red vest and pants, only just accented by golden buttons and trim. A white shirt puffs out from under the vest, the sleeves billowing in a way that makes Hugo think it’s a hand-me-down, one the kid’s supposed to grow into. Would make sense, as it’s not like there’s many places to buy clothes for a growing boy while out in the open space between the cities. 

Varian’s hands are gentle as he takes the stick of dynamite off the kid, holding it out of reach. 

“There are better ways to make a distraction, ” Varian says with a smile, reaching into his tool belt. He pulls out a small, hollow ball of glass, filled to the brim with a glowing green mixture. Yong’s eyes go wide at the sight, his chubby face splitting into a grin. The kid reaches for the ball, but Varian closes his hand around it, snatching it back. “Do you promise to go help Xavier after this?” Varian asks, fixing Yong with a warning look. 

The kid nods quickly, making grabby hands towards Varian’s closed fist. “Yeah, of course!” 

Varian rolls his eyes, but still hands the glass ball over. Yong snickers in glee as he holds it, the green glow lighting up his face in a way that seems almost manic. Nuru bites her lip like she wants to say something— but sighs, instead, as a quiet whistle echoes through the dining room. 

All four heads snap around to look across the room. Hugo raises his eyebrows. Across the dining hall, a man is poking his head up from behind a large, wingback chair made of a dark wood. He’s handsome, Hugo will admit, in a pretty-boy kind of way. He’s got a rogue-ish kind of charm to his face, with large brown eyes and tousled brown hair. And… wait a minute.

His eyes narrow. No, there’s no mistaking him. Hugo knows this one. And how could he not? Everyone in the Seven Skies knows the wild tale of Eugene Fitzherbert, former-pirate turned to a life of good, praised for helping free the lost heir to the City of Corona… 

Hugo lip curls at the thought. What a _disgrace_ , really. Flynn Rider had been a legend, the peak of the profession, and he’d thrown it all away for sickly saccharine _love_. 

What a fucking waste. 

Eugene brightens when he sees them, probably excited to see more co-conspirators, before his eyes land on Yong. He gives the kid a thumbs up, gesturing towards the window to the kitchen. With a sudden yell, Yong lobs the ball through the window, sending it flying in a perfect arc across the room. Varian tugs Hugo down by his sleeve as it explodes in a shower of smoke and glitter, and three angry voices scream from inside the kitchen. Hugo goes willingly, ducking down behind the couch as a large man comes barreling out of the kitchen through a nearby swinging door. 

“My _eyes_ !” he cries, bringing two hands up to his glitter-coated face. He’s covered head to toe in green dust and glitter, the color making him nearly monochrome. He’s _big_ , and Hugo’s suddenly glad he’d followed Varian behind the couch. 

The big man isn’t alone. Two small girls, children almost, come sprinting out from the kitchen as well, covered in the same heavy dusting of glitter. The difference being that _these two_ look downright furious, and they’re scanning the room in rage. Hugo shrinks down further behind the couch, just in time for the shorter one’s dark eyes to land on Yong.

Yong pauses, takes in the situation, tilts his head— then straightens, grins, and gives the girl a cheerful wave. “Hi Kiera!”

“ _Yong_ !” the girl yells, her black hair flying in a flurry around her face as she charges. The other girl, a redhead, follows right behind her, borderline snarling. Yong takes one look and then yelps, turning tail and sprinting for the double doors leading back to the hall. Hugo presses his back against the back of the couch as Yong bails, the two girls following close behind as they all rush from the room. Yong’s terrified screaming gets distant and small as he tries to escape, the sound getting progressively higher pitched until a sudden series of loud _bangs_ echo through the halls and cut him suddenly and terrifyingly silent. 

The large man finally gets the glitters off his face, revealing dark skin and brown eyes. “Girls!” he wails, giving chase as well. “Girls, please, we promised no more collateral damage!” He disappears into the hall after the children, and the doors fall shut behind him with a final and echoing _slam._

There’s a beat of silence, as everyone involved in this debacle waits to see if the big man will come rushing back, but after a moment it seems safe to say he’s otherwise occupied. Crouching down next to Hugo, Varian sighs, finally rising back to his feet.

“So that was Yong, Xavier’s assistant,” he says, wincing as another crash echoes from somewhere outside the dining hall. “And Lance—the big guy—and his two daughters, Keira and Catalina. They run the kitchens.” 

Hugo doesn’t really care, but he nods to pretend he does.

“Fun bunch,” Hugo says, standing as well. Nuru looks torn, her eyes flicking between where the chaos is obviously reaching a crescendo outside, and then back to the two engineers. Varian grins and hands her the dynamite, passing it like a torch. 

“Maybe you should go check on them?” Varian asks, and her face lights up in a grateful smile. 

“I should,” she says. Hugo would even say her tone is nonchalant, if not for the way she seems drawn to follow the sound of chaos. _Busy-body_ , Hugo thinks, _busy, busy, busy-body_ , and he almost laughs as Nuru spins on her heel and follows after the sound of chaos, leaving without another word. 

“Hey kid!” comes a loud voice, and Hugo groans. Right, _Fitzherbert_. Hugo had almost forgotten. 

Varian’s face splits into a grin as the man in question sashays from the kitchen, shouldering into the room with a plate full of ginger molasses cookies in his arms. Eugene already has one cookie shoved in his mouth, chewing obnoxiously, and he tosses another to Varian. Eugene is grinning around his mouth-full of pastry, and as Hugo watches, a chunk of it slips free and splats on his shirt. _Gross._

“Thanks for the help!” Eugene says, though it sounds more like _fanks fer dah hemp_ by the time it makes it through the sugar. “Couldn’t have done it without you, kid.”

Varian laughs as he catches the food, snagging a second one when Eugene offers him the tray. With a small motion he offers one to Hugo, holding it up. Hugo eyes their ill-gotten gains for a second, before shrugging and taking it. He’s never been one to turn down free food, really, even if it _does_ come from such an irritating source. Eugene seems to notice Hugo then, eyebrow raising in question. He swallows down his big bite of pastry, gasping for a second before shaking himself and looking back to Hugo. “Ah, did you finally make a friend, kid?” he asks Varian, smirking as Varian lets out an offended noise. 

“Not particularly,” Varian says, crossing his arms. He’s pouting, but when Hugo glances at him, one eyebrow raised in amusement, he’s quick to turn it into a scowl. “This is Hugo. Rapunzel hired him on as a junior engineer.” 

Eugene’s brows shoot up for the sky, and he looks over to Hugo. “ _Really_?” he says, “just like that?” 

“Just like that,” Varian mutters. Eugene purses his lips in thought before shrugging and sticking a hand out to Hugo.

“Eugene Fitzherbert, helmsman,” he says with a grin. “Welcome to the crew, then. Don’t let my vertically challenged friend here scare you off, I swear we’re nice.”

“Hugo,” the blond responds, ignoring Varian’s offended noise. “And don’t worry. All he’s done is try to sass his way out of admitting I was right and he was wrong about an engine part.” 

Varian boreline screams at that, the offense clawing its way out of his throat as Eugene cracks up laughing. Hugo smiles at a job well done. At least _someone_ on this crew had a good sense of humor. The man merely ruffles Varian’s hair, moving past them with his plate of ill gotten goods. 

“Make sure Yong goes to Xavier!” Varian calls after him, crossing his arms. Eugene offers a thumbs up, casually shoving another dessert in his mouth. 

Varian rolls his eyes and waves Hugo forward, back into the hall. “Come on. Captain’s this way. She’ll want to talk to you before we set off.” 

Hugo hums, unbothered, but behind his back his fingers tighten. The Captain. Right. Okay, then— showtime. He pulls himself taller, and sets his shoulders. He’s sold them the lie, and they’ve swallowed it, but now he has to keep it going.

There’s only one room down this end of the hall— a wide curricular door with a crossed little porthole window and a brass handle. Varian knocks twice, waits until a voice calls back, and then pushes it open. He doesn’t walk in, though, instead pressing himself back against the door and then gesturing for Hugo to go first. 

Oh, so it’s like _this_ then. Hugo grits his teeth a little and then forcefully relaxes, stepping inside. He resists the urge to shoulder-check Varian as he passes— this isn’t the time for it; there’ll be other opportunities.

The Captain’s room isn’t what Hugo expects, first stepping in. It’s smaller than Donella’s by far, almost cozy, with tapestries and scarves hanging across the ceiling and hand-painted artwork scrawling the walls from floor to ceiling. There’s a wide open window deck and small personal balcony, like Donella has, but even that is smaller than Hugo expects. 

Beyond small, it’s also breezy— every window open, every door thrown wide, as if trying to make the room seem bigger than it is. Hugo can practically see the whole sky sprawling out her window, the distant horizon and even the slight glint of the copper-panel lightning shields that make attacking Corona so troublesome. A small door on the side looks like it might lead to the Captain’s personal quarters, and in the center of the room is a huge desk overflowing with paper and ink and half-open books, ship logs and journals and one bizarrely placed cookbook. 

Captain Rapunzel is standing at the balcony, flipping through loose papers; when Hugo enters, she tilts her head with a smile. She’s still dressed in that fancy noble’s gown, like the filthy rich kid she is, though the shoes have made a sneaky disappearance entirely. On her shoulder sits a strange chameleon-looking automaton made of some fascinatingly reflective material, looking almost mirror-like but without the fragility of glass. A little ways away, a tall woman with curly bobbed hair and sharp eyes leans against the far wall, absently flipping a knife through her fingers.

Hugo glances between them, taking in every detail in seconds before he straightens and gives both ladies a smirk. “Captain,” he says, nodding at Rapunzel. He turns his attention on the sharp-eyed woman next to her, and forces his smile wider, giving a second jaunty nod. “Random stranger.” 

The woman snorts; Rapunzel laughs aloud, one hand rising to hide her smile. “Hugo,” she says, sounding delighted. God, she’s peppier than most puppies— how on earth did she get to captain of a ship like this? “It’s good to see you again! Sorry, I’ll introduce you—this is Cassandra, leader of our sky guard force.” The woman gives a short, disinterested wave with the knife. “Cass, this is Hugo— our new hire.” She turns back to Hugo, beaming. “Have you been taking a look around? What do you think?”

“She’s lovely,” Hugo says, honest for once. _None of you deserve her,_ he thinks, also, but that comment is better left unsaid. “ _Aphelion_ is a beautiful ship.”

“She flies like a dream, too,” Rapunzel says, with a little sigh. “Ah, I’m so happy you like her! You’ll be working closely with her, so—” She pats the wall next to her head, almost fond. “Well, it’s always good to know ship and engineer agree with each other.”

Varian snorts loudly. Hugo stills at the disrespect, shoulders going stiff and hands curling so tight his fingers ache— but all Rapunzel does is wrinkle her nose, giving the other boy a swift evil eye before turning back to Hugo with an apologetic smile. “Anyways, I just wanted to check in. I know I said you’ll be starting as a junior engineer, but unfortunately you’ll be on probation for a while before you can start properly. _Aphelion_ ’s engines and pipework can be… delicate, and we want to make sure you can handle her before we throw you into the fire.” She presses her hands together. “I hope you understand?”

Hugo wrestles with himself. _Probation?_ He hasn’t been on probation since he was ten years old, and the demotion stings worse than that goddamn junior title. He can hear Varian snickering behind him, and that burns too — that this pipsqueak gets to deal with those burning, beautiful engines, while Hugo spends fuck-knows-how-long screwing in loose bolts? _Fuck_ that.

But this is the Captain, her orders, her word, and Hugo thinks of Donella and the job and the payoff, and in the end he shoves his fury back in the corner of his mind, smiling wide instead. 

“Of course,” he says. “Sounds… lovely.”

“Only for a little while,” Rapunzel repeats, sympathetic. The silver chameleon on her shoulder trills softly, and she runs her finger down the length of its spine almost absently. “Oh, thank you, Pascal. I almost forgot.” She looks back to Hugo and claps her hands. “Room assignments!”

“Yay,” Hugo says, dryly. He takes a breath, shaking off the disappointment about probation more firmly, and holds himself a little taller. It’s fine. The worst news is over with, anyway. Hugo doesn’t really care where he ends up; Hugo has never been picky about these sorts of things. So long as it’s quiet and he’s away from the annoying pipsqueak, Hugo won’t complain. 

Behind him, Varian chants, in a very poor attempt at a low whisper: _please be next to the boilers, pleaseeeee be next to the boilers, please please please_ — 

Rapunzel’s smile grows wicked. “You’ll be in the empty room next to Varian’s.”

...Wait, _what?_

There’s a muffled thump as Varian dramatically falls over in shock. 

“Also, the room isn’t ready yet—” Rapunzel adds with a grin, “—so tonight you’ll be sleeping on Varian’s floor.”

Hugo opens his mouth. Hugo closes his mouth. Hugo grits his teeth very hard, and reminds himself that mutiny two hours after being hired is not, unfortunately, part of the plan. 

Behind Rapunzel, Cassandra is laughing so hard she’s starting to wheeze. Gods damn her.

Varian is still face-first on the floor. His answering “ _Fuck_!” is muffled into the wood.

Rapunzel frowns at him anyway. “Language,” she says, but— holy shit. Is that a smile? 

It _is._ They’re being mocked. By the Maker, she is _laughing_ at them. What did Hugo do to her? He thought their first meeting went fine! What the hell!?

“Is this because I ate the last slice of pie yesterday?” Varian asks the floor. “Because I am sorry. For that. _So_ sorry. Please have mercy.”

“Oh, c’mon, up— off the floor,” Rapunzel sighs at him, still laughing, and walks by Hugo to help drag Varian up to his feet again. The boy goes reluctantly, looking despondent. “I’m not doing this as punishment, Varian, please. He’s your assistant and you two are going to be working together very closely, so he’s your responsibility. That’s all.”

“But I—” Rapunzel gives him a look. Varian visibly deflates. “Fine, _fine_.”

Cassandra, Hugo notes, is grinning. He narrows his eyes. _That’s all,_ hah, he doesn’t think so. They’re being played. Hugo can sense it. 

Rapunzel draws away from Varian with one fond tuffle at the other boy’s hair, then moves back towards her desk. “That’s all I really had to say, I think… Eugene will drop off a spare blanket and pillow for you in Varian’s room, Hugo, and with luck we’ll have your lodgings prepared before tomorrow night. And… yep, that’s all! Unless you have any questions?”

“No,” Hugo says, a little stiff.

“Great! And just in time for dinner… well, I won’t keep you two.” Varian is already turning away, heading for the door without so much a salute; a moment’s pause, then Hugo reluctantly follows, unsure how to deal with this odd relationship between Captain and engineer. 

“I actually hate you,” Varian says with a scowl. 

Rapunzel laughs. “Save me a seat!”

“Yeah, yeah.”

_Wild._

They’re halfway through the door when Cassandra calls out after them. “Sleep well tonight, lovebirds!” 

Hugo rolls his eyes, and he grabs for the doorknob even as Varian whips around ahead of him, face flushed and eyes wide. “Cass!” Varian shouts through the door, right in Hugo’s face. “Come on! I have STANDARDS!”

Hugo chokes on a laugh, ducking his head quick to muffle it in his arm. _Rude!_ he thinks, almost grinning at the offended face Varian makes at his back, and then pulls the Captain’s door shut with a heavy thump.

Through the door, he can hear both Cassandra and the Captain laughing. Varian is still shouting. 

Six fucking months of this. Supposedly it’ll all be worth it in the end, but…

Ugh. 

Hugo squeezes his eyes shut, pinching at the bridge of his nose, and refuses to admit he’s smiling too.

Dinner that night is… _interesting,_ to say the least. Most of the crew is taking advantage of their last night on land, so the dining hall is decidedly empty. Still, there’s enough people to call the room cosy, the lot of them lining up to receive their food. Hugo’s used to a certain system: grab your plate, get your ration, and fuck off. Easy peasy. Varian doesn’t seem to want to chat too much, but he still shows Hugo where the large stacks of plates and cutlery are so he’s not _totally_ lost. 

Hugo’s surprised when Lance dramatically unveils a spread of food across the whole of the wide window between the large room and the kitchen. He must be pulling out all the stops for the last night before they set sail, Hugo muses, watching as those before them pick and choose at random what to put on their plate. It’s odd. Usually with ships you’d be lucky to get something that wasn’t freeze dried or hard as a rock. There’s actual _food_ here, chicken and roast vegetables, and— _by the Maker_ is that actual, honest to god _cheese_? Hugo can’t help but get a little excited. Rapunzel’s money must be good for something, he guesses. 

The Captain isn’t there, probably off eating in her own quarters like Captains usually do. No point in associating with the common rabble, after all. Varian scoops food onto his plate, idly passing a large spoon to Hugo when he’s done with it, the motion happening without any thought. It seems that’s how it works, Hugo scooping food of his own before he passes off the spoon to Eugene, standing behind him. _This is so goddamn weird_ , Hugo thinks to himself as he scoops more food onto his plate. _Who the hell actually eats food like this on a working vessel_? 

The weirdness doesn’t end there, either. The way Hugo’s used to things is simple: after you win the scramble for rations, most people tend to immediately piss off to their own isolated corners of whatever ship they’re on, hiding away to eat in peace. 

The crew of the _Aphelion_ do it differently, because _of course they do_. When Hugo goes to leave the room, Varian grabs him by the sleeve, dragging him over to the large table he’d noticed last time they were in the room. Yong and Nuru are already there, as are Cassandra and Xavier, and a few others Hugo doesn’t have names for yet. Not that he cares, of course, because none of them matter in the grand scheme of things anyways, and why is he bothering to remember their names again? 

Varian greets them with a smile, setting his food down and taking a seat. Hugo stands awkwardly for just a beat too long, holding his plate just a little too tightly, before Varian takes pity. The younger teen kicks out the empty chair next to him, gesturing for Hugo to take a seat. He does, looking around as people fill in about a third of the chairs, the lot of them clustering around one end of it. The head spot is empty, probably because it’s so close to the wall with the way the table’s jammed into the dining room. The gentle lull of conversation takes over, only growing when Lance and his daughters join as well, once everyone’s sat down. Another oddity, the kitchen staff eating with the rest of the crew. 

“I just have no idea where they went!” Lance moans sadly, “I _swear_ I made three dozen ginger molasses cookies, but now I can only find _two_ dozen.”

“That’s rough, bud,” Eugene says, playing with the tines on his fork. “We haven’t even taken off yet and you’ve already lost your mind.” 

Yong snickers from his place across from Hugo, as does Varian to his left. Hugo has to bite his lip to keep from laughing too. He’s got a reputation to uphold, after all.

Cassandra glares at them all, and they sit up a little straighter under her stare. The giggles stop, but then she smirks. “You guys tell me if he snaps,” she says, leaning back in her chair. “I need an excuse to toss him in the brig.”

Lance makes a dramatic gasp, clutching at his heart. “You _wouldn’t_ !” he wails, “I am a _single father_ , and you would throw me in the brig?”

“Absolutely,” Cassandra says blandly. “And your kids would help me.”

“We totally would,” Keira pipes up from her place next to Lance. “If you’re not around, bedtime is _never_.” 

They all let up a little as Lance begins to blubber into his dinner, wailing about _ungrateful children_ into his peas. They muddle through a little more awkward small talk, everyone dancing around the fact that Hugo doesn’t seem keen to join the conversation, until one of the doors flies open with a loud _bang_.

“Sorry I’m late!” Rapunzel crows, Pascal on her shoulder. “Got lost charting some stuff for tomorrow.”

She borderline skips past the table, grabbing a plate and humming as she loads it with food from the spread. Hugo nods to himself, _ah that must be what the chair at the head of the table’s for_. They all watch her spin around and come towards the table, and Hugo waits to be proven correct. 

Therefore, when Rapunzel sets herself down to Hugo’s left, he’s left a little confused. 

_What kind of Captain eats with their crew?_ The absurdity of it throws Hugo for a loop, the sheer oddness confusing at best. Varian snickers by Hugo’s other side, watching as Rapunzel begins to shovel food into her mouth like she’s been starving for weeks. When she breaks for air she turns to Hugo, leaning an elbow onto the polished wood of the table and balancing her chin on her hand. She looks at him with excitement, bouncing in her seat. What an actual lunatic. 

“So,” she says, her grin getting wider, “how was the rest of your afternoon?” 

“ _Fantastic_ ,” Varian says, answering for Hugo, but Rapunzel flicks a pea at him. 

“Wasn’t asking you,” she says as Varian throws another pea back. She slaps it out of midair, obviously used to this. “I was asking Hugo. So?”

“Nah, it was good,” Hugo says, trying to school his face into a smile. “Very… educational.”

“It’s a lot at first,” Rapunzel nods. “But you’ll get used to it— I promise!”

Varian snorts, but doesn’t say anything. The conversation drifts then, easy and light like they’ve been doing this for years. 

Hugo realizes with a start that they probably have.

He shuffles food around on his plate, unseeing as he begins to think of a game plan. It’s obvious that he’s going to have to tweak his original idea. It seems as though skulking around like he usually does is only going to seem more than a little suspicious with such a tightly knit crew. A bit of a wrench in the engine, but nothing he can’t handle. Donella’s counting on him, after all; it wouldn’t be due to let the _boss_ down.

Xavier seems to be going on about some legend or another, the whole table politely tuning him out. Eugene seems to be almost asleep, borderline leaning on Cassandra as he balances his chin on his hand, elbow planted firmly on the table. Hugo can see a shimmer of something on his shoulder, startling when Pascal shifts into view with the faintest glimmer of shifting colour. _God_ what a creepy thing to make. The chameleon shaped automaton wiggles on Eugene’s shoulder before letting his tongue fly, catching Eugene right in the ear. He wakes up with a _shriek_ , loudy screaming as he jolts upright.

The whole table erupts into laughter, even Xavier. Hugo can hear Rapunzel gasping for breath through the loud laughs, cackling at her husband’s expense. Hugo can see Varian out of the corner of his eye, the shorter boy nearly face first in his dinner as his shoulders shake with giggles. Hugo fully turns to him, ignoring Eugene’s howls about _goddamn awful frogs_ , and sees Varian just as he snorts on his own giggles, a hand coming up to cover his mouth. Hugo stares for just a second, caught up in the sight of it— 

_Cute_.

—Oh. Oh, _fuck no,_ he is not going there. Even if Varian isn’t half bad to look at, he’s still a certified pain in the ass, not to mention part of the crew Hugo is here to _rob_ . No amount of sass or big, baby blue eyes will ever change that. At the end of the day, Varian’s merely an obstacle between Hugo and his prize, and there is _no way_ Hugo is letting anything stop him. Hugo tears his eyes away from Varian, shaking himself. _Think of the money, stupid_ , he tells himself, _think of the fortune_. 

The laughter dies down after a few more seconds, Eugene finally getting Pascal off his shoulder and onto the table. The little automaton scurries back to it’s master, Rapunzel scooping him up and petting along his metal back with a coo. It reminds Hugo of Varian and that stupid raccoon, the way she treats the automaton like it’s a pet. _Strange_. 

Dinner settles into a companionable silence after that, everyone too busy stuffing their faces to really make conversation. This, Hugo can already guess, is probably the quietest they ever get on this ship. Hell, he’d even put money on it. They’re nothing if not a _lively_ bunch, to say the least. Not really Hugo’s style of people; the whole peppy, loving-life, sappy crew that children dream to be a part of someday. 

It’s disgusting, is what it is. 

Rapunzel doesn’t try to loop Hugo into any more conversations, thankfully, the Captain disappearing from dinner just as abruptly as she’d entered. “Sorry guys!” she says, borderline tossing her plate into a square bucket by the kitchen window. “Can’t stay long, lots to do before tomorrow!” 

Everyone calls their goodbyes, but she’s out the door in a swish of purple fabric before many of them can even speak. Varian just laughs and gathers his own dishes, holding a hand out for Hugo’s as well. The blond stands when Varian gestures with his chin, following across the room to a strange set of three pipes, all embedded in the wall. They’re brass, blending in with the warm wood well enough that Hugo hadn’t noticed them until now. 

“Forks, knives, spoons,” Varian says, gesturing to each one. He holds a fork up in display before putting it into the tube labeled _forks_ in looping, whimsical blue-painted script. The other pipes are labeled as well, and under each label the pipes have a small metal button in the center. Once the fork is in Varian taps the button with his thumb, the tube making a little _shwoop-ting_ noise as the fork is dropped down into it. There’s the tiniest puff of steam before a little piece of metal pops back up as Varian releases the button, blocking the pipe once again. 

“I made Lance an automatic dishwasher for his birthday last year,” Varian explains, “It’s not… delicate enough for anything made of glass, but for silverware it’s great.” 

Hugo snorts, his brain running a mile a minute as to how to _make it work_ for glasses and the like before he has to stop himself. He’s not here to make friends, and he’s _certainly_ not here to be helpful. Hugo tries the _knives_ chute for himself, delighting as the cutlery disappears into the void below. He might have to ask Donella about getting that for their own ship, really, not that Hugo would ever give Varian the satisfaction of Hugo asking how he made it. 

They’ve only just made it out of the dining hall, before Varian is nearly bowled over by a frantic man with red hair. The new guy— tall and gangly and looking one good breeze away from falling right over the edge— is the throes of panic, half-way ranting even as he grabs at Varian’s shoulders. Varian holds up his hands and backpedals, nearly falling into Hugo, shying away from the frantic energy of the man in front of them.

“Woah, woah— Feldspar, what’s happened now?” Varian asks, not-so-subtly trying to inch away as the redhead gets closer.

“It’s water pipe eighteen!” Feldspar— Hugo doesn’t even know where to start with a name like that— crows, nearly tugging his own hair out. “It’s popped again, I don’t know what happened!”

“ _Again_?” Varian mutters. “We’re not even in the air this time!” 

Feldspar only nods, grabbing at Varian’s wrist. The short boy sighs, looking back to Hugo with a scowl. “Stay here,” he says, already letting Feldspar tug him away. “I won’t be long.” 

Hugo nods, smiling and giving him a thumbs up. It’s obvious that Varian doesn’t believe the false innocence for even a second—Hugo can tell by the way his eyes narrow and Varian’s head cocks to the side—but Feldspar is already screeching about _water damage_ and _oh by the Gods it’s everywhere,_ and so Varian has no choice but to follow the hysterical man back to whence he came.

Hugo keeps his grin in place until they round the corner. The minute Varian loses sight of him, Hugo drops the grin like it’s wronged him, pivoting once on his heel and walking right away. 

“ _Stay there, Hugo_ ,” the blond mutters to himself, pitching his voice to be deliberately wheedling and annoying. “ _I’ll be right back_... buncha bullshit.” 

The halls of the _Aphelion_ are long and winding, but nothing Hugo can’t handle. He skates his way through with ease, eventually finding his way back up to the deck. Hugo steps out from a different door than he’d come in from, this one decidedly smaller and more unassuming than the one Varian had shown him earlier this afternoon. It’s still in the vault door style Hugo’s noticed they like to use, a great iron door embedded in the wood with a spinning wheel for a handle.

Hugo slips out onto the deck as quietly as he can, cautiously closing the metal door behind him. It ghosts along on perfectly oiled hinges, silent in the inky black of the late evening. The deck is empty, save for Hugo, but he still takes his time. He needs to find where the cargo hold is, and soon— 

A sudden _bang_ comes from the dock below. Hugo drops to the polished wood of the deck on reflex, dipping down so he’s nearly pressed up against the boards. He chances moving towards the edge of the deck, peeking over the immaculate railing and down to the dockyard below. 

Four large figures stand on the copper panels that make up the docks, all of them wrapping chains around… a very large something. Hugo perks up with interest when he sees it. _Bingo_ , something in him whispers. Donella had never told him _exactly_ what the _Aphelion_ had been transporting, only that it was incredibly valuable. From the shady way Varian had dodged Hugo’s questioning earlier in the day, Hugo can hedge his bets: it’s the kind of thing that can make a man rich beyond their wildest dreams.

The box seems to be a containment chamber of some kind, a five foot squared box of metal panels all bolted together with perfect accuracy. There’s a single porthole of glass bolted into one of the sides, and Hugo can only _just_ see a neon green light filtering through… is that ice? Sure enough the window is frozen over, and Hugo can even pick out the beginnings of hoarfrost crawling up the corners of the chamber. 

Puffs of frozen air seep slowly from the seams in the metal box. _Liquid nitrogen_ , Hugo thinks to himself, sinking down a little deeper as the side of the _Aphelion_ slides open, a great door in the outer wall of the ship. The men wrapping the containment chamber finish their work, and a metal crane extends from the guts of the _Aphelion_. This is pretty standard for larger pieces of cargo, of course, to bring it directly into the cargo bay from the outside, but in the dead of night? With minimal crew to get it in place? 

_Suspicious_.

Hugo watches as the great metal box is lifted into the air, lifting off the cart the men had brought it in, the _Aphelion_ reeling it in like a caught fish—

“Hugo?!” a frantic voice calls behind him, and Hugo whirls around, half-rising from his bannister hiding spot to see Varian, standing right behind him and looking undeniably pissed. “Hugo, you’re not supposed to be up here!”

If anything Varian looks spastic, and when he hears the commotion being made from the cargo being loaded onto the _Aphelion,_ he outright blanches, going pale in the face. He grabs at Hugo’s sleeve and starts to pull.

“You weren’t supposed to see that,” Varian says, dragging Hugo away. The blond thinks about putting up a fight, but logic tells him that would end badly. Or, at least, with Hugo being fired before he can even get what he came for. He lets Varian drag him away, chancing one last look back. 

He gets one last glimpse of the box, finally in the _Aphelion_ , the doors beginning to inch quietly shut. In the next instant Varian has pulled him out of range, but the damage is already done. 

_Bingo_ , Hugo thinks again. 

Varian bullies him off the deck, forcing him down into the labyrinthian hallways of the ship. “Why the hell were you up there?” Varian demands, stopping them once they are well and truly away from the deck. “You were supposed to wait for me near the dining hall, why did you wander off?” 

“Got bored,” Hugo says, shrugging. Varian’s eyes narrow, as though trying to intimidate him. It’s _adorable_. “Needed some fresh air, goggles, is that a crime now?” 

“It is when I told you to stay put,” the shorter boy snaps. “That cargo’s confidential; you weren’t supposed to know about it.” 

“ _Need-to-know-basis_?” Hugo asks with a smirk, remembering Varian’s words from earlier that afternoon. If anything, Varian’s scowl deepens, his teeth gritting just a little tighter.

“ _Exactly,_ ” Varian hisses, “and you weren’t supposed to know, so you’d do well to forget everything you saw up there.”

Hugo holds his hands up in a placating gesture. “Sure, goggles, can’t be _that_ important.” 

Varian huffs out a frustrated noise, and Hugo smirks. Better to feign nonchalance now that he’s been caught; if he tries to dig now Varian would be more suspicious than he already is. Varian can’t _prove_ Hugo was snooping, and that’s enough to keep Hugo safe… in theory. 

The shorter boy looks ready to punch Hugo, but he _can’t_ , and it’s so delicious. Hugo would laugh, if he weren’t so irritated. 

Varian finally settles for clenching his fist in the air with frustration, then motions for Hugo to follow him further down the hall. This is a new part of the _Aphelion_ , one lined with doors on every side of the hallways. Varian leads Hugo to one of the doors near the end, opening it and gesturing for Hugo to follow inside. 

He does, without question. 

“Your room’s not done until tomorrow,” Varian mutters as they walk into a sparse bedroom. Hugo makes a face at the room: the automaton, Ruddiger or whatever, is already sitting on the bed, fast asleep. So creepy. “You’re bunking with me, like Rapunzel said.” 

Yeah, Hugo knows; he hasn’t exactly _forgotten_ that he’s going to have to share a room with this pain in the ass. He steps inside and stands still in the center of the room, hearing Varian close the door behind them.

Despite himself, his hands curl into fists, half-hidden by his sides. Irritation bubbles bitter and acidic in his chest. He _knows_ better, he knew going in this job wouldn’t be that easy—but still. They were loading the stupid thing right in front of him, and if it weren’t for Varian, Hugo could have…! 

_Damn it._

He lets out a thin breath through his teeth, a low hiss— then turns and meets Varian’s narrow gaze with a bright smile. Varian looks annoyed to see it; Hugo smiles _harder_ in retaliation. Behind his back, his fists clench. It’s been a long day, a tiring day, and Varian is the cause of most of the bullshit. Hugo is allowed to be pissed about it, okay?

“So?” Hugo says, and if it takes more effort than usual to keep his voice light, well. “Where am I sleeping?”

Varian’s expression sours at the reminder. “Right,” he mutters, and makes for the far wall, towards a small bolted dresser with shuttered doors. “Eugene should have put some blankets in here somewhere…”

The room is cozy, Hugo notes, almost absently; sparse and clean and rarely used, the bed made and sheets crisp. Something tells Hugo that Varian doesn’t spend much time here—wherever his workspace on this ship, Hugo would bet good money it’s a disorganized mess with a cot under the desk for all nighters. 

Still, the room isn’t shabby—a nice size, with a dresser and side table and a wide bed. There’s a large porthole window looking out the right side of the ship, into the dockyard, and a copper lantern hangs from the ceiling like a droplet, swinging faintly with the sway of the ship. A heavy shag carpet takes up most of the floor, a dark gray turned multi-colored from past experiments. The rest of the walls are taken up by shelves, stuffed full of books and materials and spare parts. The smell of oil lingers faintly in the air. If Hugo hadn’t been so irritated, he might have even found it nice.

Instead he finds it vexing, and as Varian shakes out the extra bedding and lays it down, Hugo rakes his eyes down the walls and feels a sneer curl his lips. “Homey,” he says, mild as the weather, and makes it sound like half-an insult. “I bet it’s _real_ fun to fix those shelves up again once one rock sends them sprawling, hm?”

“They’re locked in with magnets. My design.” Hugo scowls; Varian looks up, grinning a little. “Also, all furniture is bolted down, too, to avoid exactly that.”

It’s _clever._ Hugo hates it. “Lovely,” he says dryly, as unimpressed as he can make it, and wanders across the room with his hands shoved deep in his pockets. His eyes catch on the dresser. There’s only one thing on it: a metallic frame with a small sepia photograph, faded and worn with time. The photo is of a young boy, obviously Varian given the matching stripe in his hair, and a man—tall and broad-shouldered with deep set eyes, smiling wide and fond at the child sitting up on his shoulders.

“Who’s that?” Hugo wonders, looking at the frame, picking it from the dresser. The magnet sticks a bit, but he pries it up pretty easy. “Daddy dearest? I don’t think we’ve been introduced. What’s he do— swab the deck?”

Varian’s voice is very quiet. “Put it down.”

Hugo looks back, mocking. “What—”

He goes silent, his mouth snapping shut. Varian isn’t even looking at him. He’s staring at the photo, pale and a little wild-eyed, hands clenched. “Put it down,” he says again, and there’s nothing in his voice at all.

Hugo’s irritation flatlines; something in his gut drops. _Shit._ He’s crossed a line, somewhere, without even knowing it. He puts down the photo at once, stepping back, hands raised and empty. “I didn’t mean to—”

Varian shoulders past him, dead-eyed and cold. “Good night.”

“I—”

“Good _night._ ”

Hugo takes the hint. He edges towards his bed roll, lips pressing thin, uncomfortable. He’d just wanted to push some buttons, not—this. He’s not sure what this is, or why he feels vaguely ill. Is this guilt? Oh, shit.

Varian shucks off his coat, under the covers before Hugo can even blink. Hugo settles on his own blanket pile just as the light snaps off. It’s dark. 

Hugo looks down at his hands, staring until his eyes adjust and he can see the shape of them in the dark, listening to the ragged drag of Varian’s breathing. He doesn’t move, not yet. He just sits, and listens, and watches his hands. 

And he waits. Just to see. Just in case.

But Varian doesn’t speak to him again.

  
Hugo opens his eyes to a dark morning. 

A headache pulses behind his eyelids almost at once, and Hugo grits his teeth and presses a hand against his temples. He hisses a breath between his teeth as silently as he can. He’d planned for this, when he’d finally laid down last night to sleep—there’s no better time for snooping on the ship then in the dead-hours of morning, after all—but still. He’d had a long day yesterday, and a late night, and something in him despairs at the dark sky he sees outside Varian’s window. The sun isn’t even _remotely_ up yet.

Ughhhhhhh.

He climbs to his feet, silent as a grave, pulling up his coat and boots to take with him. He stands, listening intently for any change in Varian's breathing, and once satisfied he moves noiselessly to the door. It’s time to get to work at his _actual_ job.

He slips out the door, and eases it closed; it clips shut with only the slightest of thumps. So far, so good. Hugo pulls on his coat as he pads his way down the hall, boots still dangling from his hands. The hallway is dead silent, and dark, only one out of every four lanterns still lit. Hugo takes his time, listening, but no one else seems to be awake yet…

No, wait. Hugo stills mid-step, eyes widening. Because there, if he strains his ears…

Footsteps, high above him.

The deck. 

...What was it Varian had said, yesterday? _Leaving tomorrow, and I mean tomorrow._ Which means—a morning lift off.

It’s ass o’clock in the morning, and the rest of the crew has apparently chosen _this_ to be the time to trope on back indoors. So…

Hugo closes his eyes and rubs at the bridge of his nose, tired all the way to his bones. Oh, he thinks. _Fuck_ me.

Well. He’s awake now, no changing that, and there’s no way he’ll be getting back to sleep anytime soon. Hugo scrubs his hands through his hair and kneels down to put on his boots. He won’t be able to go to any of the places he _needs_ to check out, but he can still take a look around. And if anyone asks, he’ll just say he couldn’t sleep. 

Still: so annoying. 

He steps up onto the main deck already frowning, and squeezes his eyes shut at what he finds—people, not enough to be loud but definitely too many to hide from, walking silent across the ship, carrying crates and tying down final shipments. They speak in muted, hushed voices; soft laughter drifts across the deck. Far-off over the edge of the deck, he can see sparks of lightning hanging in the air, Corona’s floating shields up and running even in this early hour. It’s still dark, but this high up Hugo can see the thin line of blue starting to band the horizon, the gold hue creeping into the distant clouds: dawn, slowly but surely on its way. 

Hugo looks away, and beelines for the stairs leading up to the upper deck; if he’s going to be out here, he might as well get a view. He gets half-way up before he realizes the deck isn’t as empty as first thought—there, in the far corner, elbows resting on the railing and her eyes turned towards a slumbering Corona, is Rapunzel. 

Hugo stills, preparing to back away—but it’s too late. She turns to look at him, and catches his gaze. Hugo doesn’t move. 

After a long pause, Rapunzel smiles at him, something hushed in her expression. She gestures him to her, and Hugo, though reluctant, goes.

He steps up beside her, gingerly resting his elbows on the railing in a mimicry of her pose, and turns his face to the city too so he doesn’t have to look at her. He’s not sure what to make of this Captain, all things considered; she’s childish and naive and _preppy,_ too genuinely cheerful by half, and these are all things Hugo holds in disdain. And yet, at the same time, the paradox: she is Captain of the _Aphelion_ , the fastest ship in all seven skies, the jewel of the northern skyline. She is a legend.

He doesn’t understand her at all.

Hugo turns his face up into the wind, taking comfort from the cold. Corona is a dark blot on the slowly lightening skyline, as asleep as cities ever get, the lamplights burning a distant orange and the trains all silent. It is a dark city lit only by faint, distant dollaps of light like fireflies, but as Hugo watches, a thin band of gold haloes the highest point, the first spire of the Sun’s temple, a thin circle of sunlit glow like a crown. 

The silence stretches, and Hugo shifts, a little uneasy. “What,” he says, for lack of anything better. “Homesick already?”

Rapunzel laughs quietly. “Do I look homesick?”

He glances at her from the corner of his eye and falters, because— no, maybe not homesick. Hugo doesn’t even know what that would look like. But there is something muted in her, something sad, a strange sort of melancholy as she looks out over the city. 

“I don’t know,” Hugo says, and looks away, discomforted by his own honesty. 

Rapunzel is quiet again. Then she sighs, soft, a heavy exhale. “No,” she says. “No, not homesick. I never really miss Corona, though I probably should.” Her smile twists, goes funny at the edges. “But no. _Aphelion,_ this ship, she’s home to me. Corona is… just a place.” 

Hugo makes a face at that, utterly involuntary, and turns away too late. Rapunzel hums, thoughtful. “You don’t agree?”

He thins his lips, fingers curling on the railing. He shouldn’t—it’s stupid and he knows better, never antagonize a Captain, and especially not _her;_ Hugo can’t afford an enemy this early into the game. 

But he’s tired, and his head hurts, and he’s so _sick_ of it, this goody-two-shoes crew with their sweet sayings and friendship bracelets and lack of anything resembling a sense of reality, and his fingers are digging into the wood before he can even think to stop himself. 

“What’s the deal with that?” he asks, unable to keep from sounding snide. “With all that ‘the ship is home’ shit. I mean—come _on.”_

Rapunzel tilts her head, brow furrowing. “I… I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean— ” He gestures, expansive, to the ship, something tight and angry winding in his chest, like laughter, only cruel. Because _home?_ The _Aphelion_ is beautiful, yes; Donella’s ship is lovely too, in its way. But Hugo has never been so stupid as to call a ship home. Ships are fallible, breakable, and crews shift like the tides; it’s a place of commerce and trading and battle. Not home, whatever home is, whatever that sort of thing looks like. Home stays on the ground; home is just Hugo, and all the riches in the world; home is—not necessary. Not needed.

“Look, I don’t mean any offense, Captain, but—how can a ship be a home?” He scoffs, scornful, and shakes his head, laughing under his breath. “It’s a place of employment. It’s a _job._ ”

Rapunzel is staring at him now. She’s turned away from the city entirely, looking right at him. Her eyes are pale green and sharp as glass, and all at once Hugo realizes what he’s saying, who he’s saying it _to,_ and he clenches his jaw and braces himself and waits for the verdict. Gods, if he gets fired over this, before liftoff, just because he couldn’t resist being mouthy, Donella is going to kill him. Hugo won’t even blame her. This was such a bad idea, in hindsight, so _fucking_ stupid— 

But after a moment Rapunzel blinks, and instead of going cold, or angry, or commanding, she does the most baffling thing she’s done yet: she _smiles._ At Hugo, directly at him, and it is a warm smile, a fond smile, a little crooked. As if he has said something funny, instead of something cruel. 

And all she says is: “Give it some time. You’ll see.”

Hugo stares at her, utterly floored, for the first time unsure of what to say or what’s happening. And Rapunzel shakes her head, still smiling that strange, soft smile, and before Hugo can move she reaches out and pats his shoulder, once, twice, and then she takes her hand away and heads back to the stairs. 

“I didn’t say it earlier, so I’ll tell it to you now, I think,” she says, face turned up to the wind. She’s smiling soft and small, and looks at him from over her shoulder. “Welcome aboard, Hugo. I really am happy to have you.”

By the time Hugo can even think to answer, she is already gone. 

He stays there for a long time, just staring, not sure of what to do, or what to think about it all. For the first time in his whole life he feels—he’s not sure what this feeling is. Like being seen, or being known, like something Donella did at times, very rarely. Those brief snatches of a moment, when she’d look at him and her lips would curl into the smallest of smiles; those rare, rare times when she would reach out and ruffle his hair like he was her own. Something bizarre and strange and—

Warm.

He feels shaky. It unsettles him. He doesn’t like it—Hugo draws into himself, rubbing hard at his arms, turning back to the railing. He exhales, watching his breath mist, and shivers for a moment in the morning breeze. He—

He doesn’t know what to think.

Down in the dockyard, people are starting to shout. Dock workers are crossing to and fro around the shipyard, tossing ropes and chains, beginning to unbolt the line. The ramp up to the main deck begins a slow, laborious journey of being rolled back up for storage. The ship is waking up, getting started. He can feel the rumble of the engine starting to buzz beneath his feet with a distant hum. They’re going to fly, soon. In a few minutes’ time, they’ll be in the sky. 

Hugo doesn’t move. As the blue line of the horizon turns golden with sunrise, he watches as the _Aphelion_ slowly but surely awakens into life. The chains holding the balloon down fall first; next the fires of the engine, filling up the envelope. Muted yells are traded across the deck, and in the distance Hugo can hear Rapunzel calling orders. The sails are hoisted tall and high; in the back of the airship, the great copper turbine starts to spin. And little by little, bit by bit, the _Aphelion_ starts to rise. 

Hugo stares down at the city, unmoving. He can see the puff of steam rising from the first morning train; the wind is starting to pick up, a comforting howl in his ears. The ship rocks beneath his feet as she settles into the wind currents, and Hugo grips tight at the railing, riding out the first fits and starts of a ship finally waking up.

And just like that, they leave Corona behind. 

It takes almost no time at all to leave the dock. Even less to pass the lightning shields, those chained-linked copper panels shining bright in the sun, a loose circle around the city. After all the work it took to get here… leaving Corona takes only a moment.

As the first bit of sun crests the distant hills, Corona is already falling into silhouette. It’s beautiful. Hugo has never put much stock in cities, but… even he has to admit it. The flying city is shadowed and soft in the early morning light, outlined in shining gold, and for a moment he can truly, honestly understand why it’s named for the Sun. There is something ethereal about it. Something fragile and light like a dream, a glow that exists only now, in these in-between daybreak hours. 

He watches as Corona fades away, swallowed up by the clouds, and it is only when the city is at last out of view that Hugo lets up on his grip, exhaling hard. 

He bows his head over his arms, feeling a tension he didn’t know he’d had ease away from his shoulders. He laughs, a little, then remembers the Captain and her words and—that, whatever that was, and feels the smile falter and fall off his face. 

He exhales into his elbows. He lifts his head, staring blankly into the clouds. What had she meant by that? _You’ll see._ He thinks of last night’s dinner, of Varian’s hiccuping laughter, of the way Rapunzel looked at the dawn, and—

And he thinks: _Does it matter?_

Does it matter what she meant? Does it matter what she wants? Does it matter that Lance has two kids and Varian snorts when he laughs; does any of it _actually_ matter at all? Of course not. Of fucking _course_ not. Hugo’s not here to play games or play at being their friend—he’s here for a reason, for a job, for the money at the end of the journey. Their words don’t hold any meaning. _They_ don’t hold any meaning, not in the grand scheme of it all. 

Hugo’s expression firms. His eyes narrow. His fingers curl. He shakes his head, inwardly marvelling at his own stupidity, because—seriously. What a joke. That he’s hesitated at all, that he’s _wasting time_ on this… he knows better than that. Or, he should.

The Captain—he’s underestimated her, he thinks. He understands a little better how she came to command the ship. For a moment, despite everything, despite all logic—

Hugo shakes his head again, shakes the last echoes of that conversation away, and straightens up to his full height, yawning into one hand. Stupid, really. He knows better, he always has; at least he’s gotten one good thing out of that odd, odd conversation. He’ll have to keep an eye on the Captain after all— she’s more of a threat than he first thought, and that means… Hugo’s going to have to watch his step.

He has a job to do. He has a treasure to steal. Corona is gone and the _Aphelion_ is in flight: six months left, now, till they touch down in the City of the Moon. Six months to plan—to prepare—to pull off the best heist this side of the northern sky. 

Hugo closes his eyes, and inhales deeply, and his conviction settles hard and cold in his chest. He’s ready. He has to be. The board is set—the pieces in place—the main players chosen. Hugo versus _Aphelion_ ; Hugo versus Captain Rapunzel. Everything is as it should be. All that’s left is to play the game.

All that’s left is to win. 

Hugo opens his eyes to the first dawn of many to come, and grins. 

“Game on.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Anna** \- And we’re off!! No turning back at this point! Hugo’s got a hell of a ride in front of him, I’ll tell you that! _Aphelion_ is our baby, we love her so, and I’m sure it shows. Iza and I had a lot of fun with this chapter, getting the pieces set up and ready to get started! We’ve got a notorious thief, an invaluable cargo, and a bunch of crazy bastards, all locked on a ship together for six months. What could possibly go wrong?? As always, thank you for reading, guys, gals, and non-binary pals! 
> 
> **Iza** \- Hello again!! Welcome to chapter two! The ship has sailed and now the plot begins… We’re so excited to introduce the rest of our crew! And the ship, of course. Honestly, writing the _Aphelion_ was half the fun. Isn’t she just beautiful?? Even Hugo has to admit it, ahaha.
> 
> Rapunzel was a real joy to introduce in this chapter too. We saw a glimpse of her in chapter one, but the ship is where she really shines: she’s a Captain for a reason, after all! And considering the only other Captain that Hugo knows is Donella, well… he’s in store for a lot of confusion, ahaha. (Plus, Varian. Varian’s going to rock his world. Watch out son.) 
> 
> Thank you guys so much for reading!!
> 
> Themes: _Hullabaloo_ \- Rare Americans, _Nicknackatory_ \- Mr B the Gentleman Rhymer, _Brittle Bones Nicky_ \- Rare Americans, _It’s so Overt it’s Covert_ \- Hans Zimmer
> 
> Spotify is [here!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5UMJcoECqWJPD05ax3LV3E?si=kBSWLYKkSfOnLzTjCYYtyw)
> 
> Tumblr is [here!](https://varian-and-the-seven-skies.tumblr.com/) Feel free to ask us anything!
> 
> Any thoughts?


	3. Building Pressure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a long month of probation, Hugo settles in-- but the skies are rife with danger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all!! Chapter three already!! Time flies…
> 
> Thanks to everyone who commented, bookmarked, kudosed, and read the fic!! It means a lot to us! We’ve been grinning over your guys’ comments for days!! Thank you so much!
> 
>  **Warnings:** cursing, implied/referenced child abuse a la Donella, dangerous situations, and minor injury. If there’s anything we missed, let us know and we’ll add it on here!

As it turns out, Hugo gets stuck on probation for an _entire fucking month_. 

There are many things Hugo’s done for the sake of a job. Arson, sure. Murder? No problem. Jaywalking? You bet your ass. 

But there’s something about _probation_ that’s like a little needle wiggling in the back of his mind— an insult to the highest degree. Hugo isn’t _stupid_ , no matter what Varian might think. He’s been elbow deep in moving machinery since before his voice cracked— it’s a borderline disgrace to keep Hugo away from the engine of the _Aphelion_. Every time he walks over the catwalk, looking down at the perfect engine working in perfect harmony of clanking gears and whistling steam, Hugo feels a bitterness coat his tongue. Probation— what kind of _bullshit._

He spends the month changing light bulbs and smashing bolts with a rubber mallet. The bronze bolts used in a lot of _Aphelion_ are just that little bit too soft for a metal hammer; to keep them perfect Hugo gets a mallet of bouncy silicone to bully them back into place. He feels ridiculous, hearing the cute little _whump_ noise every time he tries to coerce a bolt back into one of the boilers. The ships Hugo’s used to are made of tough iron, heavy and vicious and full of teeth, the type of engines that could explode fifty times over and still keep trucking. The dainty, almost artisanal engine of _Aphelion_ is a beautiful thing, but she’s _touchy_ , and particular. 

Kind of like her creator.

“C’mon Hugo, keep up!” Varian demands as he strides up into the guts of the engine room. Hugo dogs at his steps, occasionally kicking the back of Varian’s heel just to watch him trip. Once he actually manages to get Varian to stumble into the wall, and the shorter teen turns around with such venom in his eyes that Hugo finds himself taking a quick step back, hands high in surrender. On Varian’s shoulder, even Ruddiger looks annoyed, its aperture eyes clicking as the automaton cocks its head at Hugo, fixing the blond with those creepy green eyes. By the _Maker_ what an eerie looking thing—

“Do that again, and you’re getting a wrench to the face,” Varian threatens, gesturing angrily with his tool of choice. Seriously, Hugo has yet to see him without _some_ kind of metal weapon on hand, it makes screwing with him even more difficult. Hugo leans away, nearly going cross-eyed as Varian waves the wrench ever closer, the tip just barely missing the tip of Hugo’s nose.

“You’re adorable,” Hugo coos, using his pointer finger to guide the wrench down and away from his face. Varian’s scowl deepens, a soft dusting of pink spreading across his ears, but he doesn’t bring the wrench back up again. Hugo’ll take it for a win. 

His automaton is less forgiving: Ruddiger lets out a little puff of steam, digging his little metal claws into the leather protector affixed to Varian’s shoulder, eyes fixed right on Hugo. Varian, to his credit, doesn’t even flinch as the little raccoon shifts on his shoulders, as if it doesn’t weigh a thing. Hugo eyes them both, a little wary— but all Varian does is turn back around, leading Hugo on deeper into the beating heart of _Aphelion_. All is forgiven apparently. Or, put aside for the sake of progress. Is he trying to act like the bigger person? Hah, Hugo can’t wait to see how long _that_ lasts.

Still, Hugo follows a few feet behind, not really wanting to push his luck. He’s already met the business end of one of their stupid fucking mallets; Hugo’s not keen on adding a wrench to the list as well. 

All thought of bothering Varian gets shoved aside as they come up to the engine. Even though he’s seen it on and off during his month of probation, this up-close look leaves Hugo nearly breathless all over again. The heart of the ship is just as magnificent up close as it looks from the catwalk, intricate bronze and copper tubing spider-webbing out from every direction, perfectly organized in clusters of pipes that shine even in the dim lights. The arteries of the _Aphelion_ are mapped out in such a way that they run along the underside of the catwalks, weaving around the scaffolding surrounding the engine in a way that looks effortless, like _of course_ the piping belongs there, where else would it go? Hugo’s used to slapdash vessels, ones tossed together out of bits and bobs from downed ships, frankenstein-ed together from the corpses of past victims into something that’s ugly, but _solid_ ; the type of ship Donella could take into battle with confidence that it would make it out the other end. 

Hugo is sure Donella’s favorite warship, affectionately called the _Rapture_ , couldn’t hold a candle to _Aphelion_ ’s meticulously crafted system of pipes, gears, and wires, but Hugo can see one fatal flaw in Varian’s designs. Aphelion’s _fast_ , and trying to catch her might as well be like trying to catch the wind, but she’s not built for a fight. She’s _delicate_ , like a bird; one good hit will send her tumbling out of the sky. 

Hugo jolts from his musing, a sudden arm stopping him in the chest. He looks down to Varian with an arched brow. They’re on a catwalk maybe two meters off the metal floors of the engine room, right near a space between two large boilers. The one to the left makes a strange little _burble_ noise. 

Hugo looks back to Varian, confused now, but the shorter teen just shakes his head and holds up three fingers. He puts one down, followed by the second, but waits for a tick. There’s a split second of quiet, the _burble_ stopping, but Varian doesn’t let Hugo move forwards. Instead he uses his finger like a maestro would a baton, pointing at the loud boiler with a small gesture.

Lo and behold, the boiler spits out a waft of disgusting smelling steam with an unhappy _blurgle_ of a noise. Varian holds off for a second before waving towards a small clock on one of the railings.

“Nine-oh-seven,” Varian says smugly, “on the dot. Every day, it does that; you’d do well to remember if you want to stay clean.” He taps the clock with a smile, moving down the catwalk towards the engine. Hugo rolls his eyes. By the _Maker,_ Varian’s just as insufferable as he was the day they met. Same shitty like smug grin, same high pitched, irritating voice, and— Hugo notes with a smirk— same stupid mannerisms. 

Varian, currently jumping down a set of metal stairs two at a time, looks back and scowls at Hugo’s blatant stare. “Not a word.” Varian says, continuing down the stairs. Hugo can’t help but laugh to himself, following down _one stair at a time, thank you_. Ruddiger flips around on Varian’s shoulders to watch as Hugo follows them; the blond scowls at the automaton as he blinks his creepy neon eyes. Varian leads Hugo across the metal base of the massive engine room, towards the behemoth of metal that is their main engine. 

Hugo looks up at it with a sense of awe, the engine towering above him. It’s a great huffing thing made of spinning cogs and puffing steam, making a wonderfully loud _tick, tick, ticking_ as the mechanism within brings _Aphelion_ to life. It’s like a heartbeat: the steady noise, the drumming thud that cuts through the whine of steam and clunking gears. As they get close, Varian smiles at it like an old friend. 

“Here she is,” Varian stops, hands on his hips and smile smug. “My pride and joy.”

Hugo, shit that he is, can’t help but purse his lips and stare at the engine like he’s judging it. “I dunno, goggles,” he says with a raised brow, “I think I’ve seen better on this one trip I was on to Vardaros, but your little putt-putt engine is cute, I guess.” 

Hah, score. Hugo’s never seen Varian look so furious— and oh, that’s a new vein popping out of his forehead. _Delightful_. There’s nothing better than watching Varian at a loss for words, Hugo thinks, with some pride. It’s always nice to win. 

Varian whirls on Hugo with a fierce scowl, but stops with a grunt when he nearly brains himself on one of the overhead pipes. Hugo sees the way Varian stops himself before he can think about it, subconsciously already knowing about the hazard before he’d even seen it.

Well, it’s nice to see that at least the pipsqueak knows enough about his own engine not to kill himself on it.

Speaking of unfortunate death, Varian looks about ready to kill _him_ , but Hugo can see the gears in that brain turning. As much as Varian is a bitter little ass about Hugo being on his team, they need him. _Aphelion_ is a well-oiled machine, but even a perfect clock needs the occasional gear added to ease the way. The Captain— sorry, _Rapunzel_ — hired Hugo on as an extra pair of hands; even from his days on probation he can tell that Varian’s engineers are just that _little_ bit too overworked, stretched a pinch too thin. No matter how much Varian hates him, Hugo’s an extra pair of hands they desperately need.

Besides, it’s hard to ditch a dead body mid-flight. Hugo would know. 

“I’m going to ignore that for the sake of our working relationship,” Varian finally mutters, placing a hand on the pipe he’d nearly smacked into. 

“Aw, didn’t know we were ready for that level of commitment,” Hugo replies, voice light and tone flat. “Did you even buy me a ring yet?”

Varian… turns around and leaves.

No response, no blustering, just backs right up and walks towards the engine. Obviously Hugo’s broken him already— so sad, it’s barely even mid-morning. Hugo follows, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket. It’s _so fucking hot_ in the engine room, which is probably why everyone around Hugo wears light, loose shirts made of thin cotton. Alas, Hugo will part from his coat the day he dies in it. He’ll suffer six months of sweating to keep it, and gladly so. 

Still sucks, though. 

From here, down on the ground level of the engine room, Hugo can see one of the larger engineers opening a large door in the base of the _Aphelion_ ’s ticking heart. The man pulls out what looks like a fuel cell, but not like one Hugo’s ever really seen. Engines usually run on coal, or even wood in a pinch— anything that can be burned to boil water, creating steam and spinning turbines in a generator. Usually that translates to some kind of coal going into some kind of fire. 

Not in the _Aphelion_ , it seems.

It’s a well known rumor that the ship _supposedly_ doesn’t run on coal. _Aphelion_ is notorious not only for her speed, but for the fact that she has never refueled at a single port. While other captains are at each other’s throats for coal and water, Rapunzel has never been seen joining the fray. Hugo’s never been one to put stock in rumors, but seeing as Donella apparently _did_ here he was. 

The man working at the engine removes what looks like a large, bronze tube from the engine. Through the access door Hugo can see many other identical containers in perfect rows, at least thirty of the things all aligned in a grid. They’ve all got little gauges on them, probably showing how full they are if Hugo had to guess; every single one of them glow a noxious looking neon green. Hugo tilts his head to the side, curious. The colour is the same as Ruddiger’s eyes- 

“Flynnolium,” Varian says, catching Hugo’s eyeline. The blond startles, looking to the shorter teen. 

“Flynn- _what_?” Hugo asks, watching the man at the engine replace the empty canister with a new one, full of the same glowing green liquid. 

“ _Flynnolium_ ,” Varian repeats, just a little snarkily. “It’s what we use to power the engines. It’s a chemical of my own design, burns hotter, longer, and cleaner than coal.” 

“Really, now?” Hugo asks. The canister gets turned halfway, locking in with a small _pshh_ noise. “What’s it made of?” 

“Trade secret,” Varian says tartly, suddenly tight-lipped now that his chance to brag is over. “Only Rapunzel and I know how to make it, and it’ll stay that way.” 

Hugo throws his hands up in a peaceful gesture. “Sure, goggles.” He shrugs. “Just curious, was all.” 

Varian seems content with that answer, leading Hugo away as the engineer closes the access door to the engine with a harsh _clang_ of metal on metal. They reach the side of the engine, where a large control panel of assorted dials, gauges and levers stands proud. It’s nearly as long as the engine is, full of flashing lights. Hugo can already see where a lot of the buttons have clustered into labeled categories, _lights, main engine, boilers 10 through 15_ —

Oh. 

Hugo tries not to focus on the series of monitoring lights under the title of _Cargo Hold_ , a series of alarm indicators and controls that Hugo can’t make heads or tails of. He’ll need to take a better look when the pipsqueak isn’t here, but for now Hugo simply marks it as a point of interest and plasters on a smile when Varain turns around to yell at some poor croney near the nearby boilers.

“Hey, Stan!” Varian says, in that way that seems to get the entire engineering team’s attention. “Boiler seven’s making a concerning noise, check it out, would you?” Stan snaps to immediately, power-walking over so as to not face Varian’s wrath. 

It seems, as Hugo has quickly learned, that while Rapunzel is the type of Captain to let things slide to an alarming degree of informality, Varian is quite the opposite. The kid runs a tight department, tighter even than Donella’s engineers, in Hugo’s opinion. Goggles is a _ruthless_ lead engineer, fair but firm; it’s obvious that he has no time nor patience for stupid mistakes. Varian’s crew snaps to his orders the second they leave his mouth, some of the newer ones out of sheer fear, but the ones who have been on the crew for a while? They do so out of _respect_. 

Hugo, on his third day onboard _Aphelion_ , had once watched Varian take a loose bolt and throw it with perfect accuracy at the head of the engineer who was supposed to have tightened it. Unfortunately Hugo had spent so long being _just slightly_ impressed that he hadn’t caught much of the tirade that followed, but something about seeing Varian’s dedication to making _Aphelion_ perfect, his obvious care for the ship he helped build… it makes something in Hugo spark. 

It’s always nice to meet a fellow artist, after all. 

“So, this is the main control for most of the engine and boiler functions,” Varian says, gesturing to the panel. “I know you’ve seen it before, but if you play nice, maybe I’ll actually let you use it.” 

“Gee, goggles,” Hugo deadpans. “How generous.”

“I know,” Varian says back, just as flatly. “You’re lucky I’m even considering it.” 

Hugo snorts, but still tilts his head when he sees a series of thin pipes sticking out from the edge of the panel, descending into the floor. All of them end at a perfect right angle at about head height, made of the same polished brass as the rest of _Aphelion_ ’s pipes. Hugo catches the labels for _Bridge_ , _Kitchen, Library,_ and the like. There’s nearly twenty of them, which is an insanely high amount; the _Rapture_ , Hugo knows, only has one intercom, connecting the bridge to the engine room. Each of the tubes has a small earpiece hanging from it, one of which Varian idly plays with as he talks. 

“So Rapunzel typically leaves us mostly to our own devices down here,” Varian says, “but in case of emergencies, make sure you keep an ear out for her if you’re nearby.” He hooks the earpiece back onto its holder, pursing his lips. “If you’re near enough to hear it’s your responsibility to listen and relay, the whole department knows that. I’m working on making a louder speaker, but until that day comes, this is the best way of doing it. Understand?” Varian fixes Hugo with a look that dares him to argue.

“Got it, goggles. If the Princess calls I’ll answer.” Hugo waggles his eyebrows, and something mean in him sparks with amusement when Varian flushes.

“ _Please_ don’t do that, she’s basically my sister—” Varian starts to whine, but the request is cut short as a large _BANG_ suddenly rings from the boiler that what’s-his-nuts had been working on. The sound echoes; tremors shake through the whole floor, and in the distance something flies through the air and lands with a series of heavy clangs. 

Hugo flinches, but Varian, his back to the noise, jumps outright. His face has gone white with shock, and he flinches away so hard he trips. His feet tangle— his head dips forward— he’s falling, Hugo realizes, and falling fast. 

Hugo lunges forward before he can really think about it, eyes wide and hands flung out to catch him. One of Hugo’s hands manages to grab Varian’s outstretched arm, but the other ends up firmly on Varian’s waist. The momentum twists them around, the two of them nearly ending up tangled together as they stop face-to-face. It almost looks like Hugo’s dipping Varian in a dance. 

Despite himself, Hugo can feel his face go red. He’s almost thankful that everyone’s too busy looking for the source to notice them, especially as his eyes lock with Varian’s and both their faces begin to heat. Varian is— _too_ close. He’s bright red, and staring at him, and… 

Hugo panics.

He drops Varian like contact with the shorter teen has burned him. Varian yelps as he hits the metal floor, falling flat on his ass with an unhappy _thunk._ There’s a beat of silence as Hugo says his prayers, before looking down to Varian.

“What—” Varian yells from his place on the ground, “—the _actual fuck,_ Hugo?”

_Smooth, asshole,_ something in Hugo groans, even as he tries his best to plant a smirk on his face and play this off, “Sorry, goggles, can’t help that you’re falling for me.” 

Varian seems actually thrown there, brow furrowing like he’s trying to figure out what the hell Hugo’s on about. Honestly, _Hugo’s_ trying to figure out what the hell he’s on about. Hugo turns away as fast as he can, looking over to the idiot at the boiler. There’s already a large group gathered, the bunch of rubbernecks, so Hugo can only just see poor Stan trying to explain what he’s done to the irritated crowd.

“Might want to go save your guy,” Hugo mutters to Varian with a jerk of his chin, already gearing up to watch the large group tear the guy apart. Varian grunts as he gets up off the floor, already moving to save Stan from the hoard. They part like the sea around him, despite the fact that Varian is at least a head shorter than his entire staff. Hugo follows, slinking through the wake of Varian’s presence out of sheer curiosity. 

The boiler that made the _bang_ looks like it popped open from the inside, the metal door obviously torn from its hinges like they were made of tissue-paper. It lies about six meters away from the massive boiler, thankfully having missed hitting the water lines. They’d be dealing with a lot more than an irritated crowd if that had exploded too.

Varian reaches the boiler, his crew backing away as he surveys the damage. Hugo himself, though he doesn’t know what the original layout looked like, can see where the pipes have been warped by the pressure and heat from the explosion; he’s sure Varian probably has the blueprints bloody memorized so surely there’s more to be dealt with. Hugo can see the cogs turning in Varian’s head—probably just trying to reign in his temper though, honestly. 

“What happened?” Varian finally says in a measured tone. Everyone in the near vicinity immediately bails out, scattering like birds in the wind. Varian’s _calm_ voice is enough to strike fear into the heart of everyone who’s smart enough to know their ass from a hole in the ground. Specifically, Stan seems ready to die on the spot, mumbling something about _pressure_ and _don’t know what happened_ , and even a _should have known better_ peppered in there. Varian’s face is impassive, but Hugo knows a mask when he sees one. 

“I didn’t ask what you should have done,” Varian says, and Hugo can _feel_ the frost. “I asked what happened.” 

“It— I—the boiler—” Stan stutters out, flailing like it’s wronged him. “It just exploded, I swear I don’t know what happened, it was _fine_!” 

Hugo looks to the thing with a raised brow— something from this boiler seems familiar. He’s pretty sure he’s seen one of these before, on the _Rapture_ , maybe a few iterations back. Hugo’s pretty sure they’ve got a weird twitch, in the way the one exhaust valve can get stuck…

“Well, obviously it wasn’t,” Varian is saying. “We _just_ got this one replaced too, I haven’t even gotten a chance to look at it yet…” 

“Can I take a look?” Hugo says, immediately regretting it. _Stupid, dumbass brain,_ he thinks, _we’re not here to help_.

Varian’s brow arches, but he nods and gestures Hugo towards the boiler. “Just don’t break anything else,” Varian sighs, before fully turning away to scare his underling.

Hugo pulls a face at Varian’s back, but moves to look at the boiler. She’s a fucking mess, to be honest, blown right to hell. There’s a sheen of grease and other assorted gunk on it, just from the general environment. Hugo idly tugs on the sleeve of his coat; the jacket is going to get disgusting if he crawls in and fixes the exhaust valve at the back. He takes another second to debate before finally sighing and shrugging the jacket from his shoulders, folding it over a nearby pipe. He stares it a little mournfully as he rolls his white sleeves up, already gearing up for this to be a _pain in the ass_.

The boiler Hugo knows is this one’s previous model from the _Rapture_. Hugo knows it has a big problem with getting an exhaust flap stuck at the very back, causing a buildup of steam, which will eventually… _pop_.

Hugo shifts down, crouching to try and see inside. Ruddiger slinks off Varian’s shoulder, landing with a little _thunk_ of metal on metal; the automaton crawls closer, uncaring as Hugo tries to shove him away. The raccoon shaped hunk of brass and iron simply looks at Hugo with something akin to curiosity, aperture eyes clicking open and shut. 

Hugo scoffs, turning away and crawling into the boiler. It’s dark, obviously; Hugo groans as he’s forced to shove his whole body into the boiler to reach the back flap, his shins and feet the only bits. Sound disappears when he does so, Varian’s nasally little voice going quiet as Hugo enters the boiler. Hugo props his weight up on one hand, trying to balance as the filth of the boiler’s interior starts to seep into his clothes, the dirt and the oil of a well-fed machine. The metal of the doorway digs uncomfortably into his gut, but Hugo keeps looking—

Ah. _Ah-hah_. 

Hugo grins at the flap, jammed shut just like he thought. He reaches his free hand up and jostles at it, squeezing his eyes shut as a small rain of oil and dirt falls on his head from the motion of it. The flap comes loose with a little _skrt_ noise. Hugo uses his hand to dislodge the rest of the grime that had been gluing it shut, grunting as the metal sheet of the doorway gets just a _pinch_ too close to his dick—

“Hugo, the hell are you doing in there?” Varian’s voice rings through the boiler, echoing through the large space and making Hugo’s ears ring. He winces at the noise, letting go of the flap and slowly easing himself out from the boiler and back into the light of the engine room. He catches sight of Varian’s judgmental face; something about it makes Hugo feel bitter. 

“I’m fixing your shit, goggles,” Hugo says snappishly, rubbing at his face to try and dislodge the grime. Ugh, he can practically feel it sinking into his skin— disgusting. “ _Obviously_.” 

Varian arches a brow, not commenting as Hugo shrugs his coat back on. Hugo swipes again at his face, but he can feel how the grease just smudges. He finally just gives up, content to look a mess until lunch. 

“If you _have_ to know,” Hugo says, “this brand of boiler has their exhaust on the bottom left, next to one of the intake valves, so when you get it going too hard grease and dirt will get stuck in the flaps. Flaps get stuck, pressure builds—”

“ _Oh_!” Varian cuts him off, eyes alight. “ _Boom_ , right?” 

Hugo pauses a bit, but nods. “Exactly, _boom_.” 

Varian tilts his head, looking at Hugo with something new in his eye. Hugo can’t place what it is, it’s only a flash in the pan, but he swears it almost looks like _affection,_ which— _nah_ — impossible. Hugo rubs at his face again, but stops when a small bottle of _something_ is shoved in his face. 

It’s a small bottle, inky black and sealed with a wax stopper. Varian holds out the bottle with an expectant look, but Hugo merely arches a brow. 

Varian sighs and rolls his eyes, pushing the bottle into his hand. “It’s _soap_ ,” he says. “Surely you know what soap is?” 

“ _Obviously_ ,” Hugo shoots back, “but surely _you_ know soap doesn’t work on—”

“This one does,” Varian cuts him off. “I made it myself. It works, so use it.” 

Hugo pouts, but does as he’s bid. Sure enough, when he rubs it into his skin the gritty texture works to lift the oil away. _Goddamn it_ , Varian was right and now Hugo’s going to hear about it for the next five months—

“See.” Yep, there it is. Varian looks smug, the little bastard. “Told you.” 

“Sure, goggles,” Hugo mutters, flicking his fingers and splattering Varian with the last of the soapy reside. “Good job, or whatever. Want a cookie?” 

Varian flinches as he’s hit by the oil-and-soap, spluttering in shock before regaining composure and shoving at Hugo with a pout. Ruddiger weaves around Varian’s legs, seemingly content to wait for his human to pick him up. 

“Last time I help you, then!” Varian grumbles, snatching the bottle back. There’s a hint of a tease to it, the sound makes Hugo’s ears perk. And— oh holy shit, was that a _blush_ —

Nah. No, no way. No fucking way—oh holy shit, is it actually? Something evil in Hugo preens. He knew it was a matter of time before he cracked Varian’s cranky exterior, knew it was inevitable for something as snippy as their relationship to turn to something more _fun_ but… well, Donella _had_ said not to fool around with any of the crew, get to close, etcetera etcetera.

Ain’t it a damn shame though.

Varian seems to shake himself, quickly scooping up his pet and fast-walking past Hugo, back towards the wall, and another smaller door. “ _Okay_!” he says, a little too loudly. “Next stop is Yong and Xavier’s domain. They, um, they keep the engine fueled, so—uh, let’s just go.” 

Hugo tilts his head, a comment on the tip of his tongue. But Varian isn’t looking at him, shoving the door open instead, already gesturing for Hugo to follow. 

Hugo shakes his head, still smirking, and steps through the door. This new room is smaller, and infinitely cooler; at once Hugo relaxes, breathing a sigh of relief at the colder air. He’s being ridiculous, honestly. His imagination, that’s all the blush was. The heat must be making him see things—and oh, now that he thinks about it, of course Varian’s face was red—it’s probably been from the boiler heat all along. 

Hm. Disappointing. 

“Look,” Hugo says, pushing the thought aside. “I don’t think that...” And then he stops, mid-word, because is that—

“Yong!” Varian shouts. 

Yong, kneeling on the floor with a pile of metal scraps and, somehow, _another stick of dynamite_ (this is the third time Hugo’s seen him with some this month, how even), looks up and immediately drops the lit match he was guiding to the fuse. “I wasn’t going to light it!”

“You had a lit match _in your hand_!” 

“But I wasn’t—”

Hugo rolls his eyes and steps forward, ignoring the argument. Yong has wedged himself in the corner of the room, and his set-up is honestly pretty impressive—piles upon piles of finished product, whatever it is, and neat piles of various material surrounding him, all in their own place. He looks focused, and tired too—there’s soot lingering on the edges of Yong’s clothes and around his eyes, and he’s blinking fast like he’s trying to reorient himself. He must have been working on this for a while.

Hugo looks Yong up and down and then eyes the mess of materials scattered around him, humming under his breath. “What are you trying to make, anyway?” he wonders, kneeling down for a better look. Blasting charges and fuse wire, and those small bags of powder, could they be…? “What is this, dynamite with extra boom?”

Yong grins up at him. “Better!” He hands Hugo the stick of explosive before Hugo can pull away, and tugs on Hugo’s arm, gesturing for him to sit. Hugo raises his eyebrows and tries to hand the explosive back.

“Look, Pyro, I’m really not in—”

“I’ve been working on it for ages,” Yong says, already babbling, eyes bright with excitement. “Ages and ages, and I’m finally getting it! It’s been a pet project of mine since our trip to—”

“ _Seriously,_ I don’t actually—”

“—and I really, really want it to be awesome and amazing and the _best_ before I show anyone, but if you really want to know, I could…” Yong trails off, blinking hard. “Oh, uh. Sorry. What were you saying, Hugo?”

“I…” Hugo looks down at him—Yong, exhausted and sleep-deprived and so excited to share his work he looks about ready to fall over—and sighs. He tilts back his head and groans, makes a show of resisting, but eventually falls cross-legged across from him. “I was wondering… if you could tell me more.”

Yong beams. Hugo sighs, long-suffering, and settles in to hear the ramble with the faintest of smiles on his face. Yong’s enthusiasm is amusing, at least. And Hugo really _is_ curious, and Yong looks delighted at the audience, and hey, fostering good relations with the crew is a good way to keep his cover, right? 

Right.

“Look, look,” Yong says, and turns the explosive in Hugo’s hand, unscrewing the top. His grin is bright and blinding. “See here—careful emptying it, but look—”

“There’s layers,” Hugo says, surprised, and tips out the stick, careful, into his hand. Black powder on the bottom of the canister, and then a thin layer of casing in between, and is the dynamite stick itself here actually just a kind of stiff and heavy wax paper to hold it all together…? 

It’s a genius design; Hugo’s honestly impressed. “Did you make this?”

“Yeah!” Yong points at his hand. “See, see, this is the black powder—it has to go on the bottom, near the fuse, to make it _bang_ , and throw out everything else—and that explosion tears through the layers and interacts with everything else, the bursting charge and such, and then that ignites the powders and resin that give it color, so then—”

Hugo grins. “Fireworks.”

Yong laughs. “Yeah!” He taps the side of the stick almost absently. “I can do the usual ones, but I want to do—something special. Like a delayed reaction! So you get the initial POW and then, after a second, a second color, like a falling shimmer, maybe…”

“Yeah?” Hugo says, interested despite himself. He doesn’t know much about explosions, but he knows chemistry, and the reactions within; the idea is purely cosmetic, but just the idea of a delayed reaction mid-air is something Hugo can’t help but admire. Science like that _should_ be flashy; it's all about showing off., and rightfully so. “And you think you’ve got it?”

“Well, maybe.” Yong leans to the side, pouting over Hugo’s shoulder, up at Varian. Varian crosses his arms, looking unimpressed; by his feet, Ruddiger clicks and whistles, the gears whirring as it shifts. “Which is why I gotta _test_ it!”

Hugo laughs before he can stop himself. “Maybe do that _outside,_ Pyro.”

“The sails are outside.”

“That’s…” Well. Yeah. Hugo is starting to see the dilemma here.

Varian sighs a little, but his irritation is softer and almost mild, and for some reason he’s smiling a little as he steps up behind them, nudging Hugo with his foot. “Ask Raps if you can use her quarters,” Varian tells Yong, and Hugo goes stiff and still and resists the urge to grab Varian’s collar and shake him, because _what?_ “She’s got a balcony overlooking the side, so…”

“Oh, that’s a great idea!” Yong brightens at once, and before Hugo can stop him, the younger boy is sweeping up his materials and has shoved them back into his bag. “I’ll go ask—”

“Hey,” Hugo says, giving Varian a nasty look, because _seriously,_ the fuck, and then turns back to Yong to do damage control. “Hey, hey, let’s not—”

“What are you guys doing over here?”

Hugo startles—he hadn’t even heard the door _open,_ when had she…?—but Yong is grinning even wider than before, eyes bright with delight. “Nuru!” he calls, waving her over. She’s standing in the doorway, head cocked to one side, rolled maps under one arm. “Just in time! Look what I made!”

“Yong, you heard Xavier, if it’s dynamite again…”

“Fireworks, Nuru! _Fireworks_!”

She comes in close, peering down at the stick, and then gives Yong a look. Her lip is twitching. “Yong…”

“What?”

“It looks a lot like dynamite.”

“That’s just ‘cause I don’t know how to make it look like anything else!” Yong grins at her, scratching at his nose a little sheepishly. “But anyway, Nuru, it’s fine! Besides…”

Nuru eyes him.

“These are going to be…” Yong pauses, very obviously, then adds in a stage whisper: “ _Purple_ fireworks.”

Hugo stares at the two of them, bemused. Yong can’t honestly think—

He looks at Nuru. Nuru is being very quiet. She’s biting her lip. She looks—and this is where Hugo has to turn away, because if he keeps watching this he’s going to start laughing and never stop—she looks _torn._

_The goody-two-shoes brought low just because the explosions are in her favorite color?_

These people, honestly. 

“Well… if you do it outside, I guess it’s okay…”

Hugo literally can’t stop himself, it’s too fucking absurd— 

Varian elbows him, hard. “Stop laughing.”

“You’re all ridiculous.”

“And you’re one to talk?”

“Well, you’ll have to _excuse_ _me_ , goggles, but I’ll have you know—”

“ANYWAY,” Nuru says loudly, cutting them off, her cheeks a little dark from embarrassment. She flaps a hand at them. “Varian, Yong, I needed to talk with you. We finalized the flight plans for next week, and the Captain wants to make sure the engines could make the trip until the next city stop…”

Varian hums, holding out one hand; Hugo looks over his shoulder, curious, as he unfurls the maps on the ground. Ruddiger slips off Varian’s shoulder to pin down the other end of the map, tiny claws clicking soft against the parchment. The maps are beautiful, hand drawn and decorated with tiny painted flowers in the corners. It looks brand new. Is there an artist on board Hugo hasn’t met yet? 

Varian traces his finger over the routes, frowning absently. “The north-east wind trails... is she sure?” he asks Nuru. “We’re in iffy territory now as-is, taking just the eastern passage, but _north_ -east… Nuru, it’s _hatching season_.”

“It’s unpopular, but not _that_ much more dangerous,” Nuru explains. “Captain thinks it might be worth the risk— less chance of running into other ships, you know? After the pirate debacle last time, she doesn’t want to take any more chances. Not with our cargo—”

She cuts herself off. Nuru is watching him, Hugo realizes; it takes effort not to react, to hold himself still and hum, absent and curious, as if these events have nothing to do with him at all. 

“Well,” Yong says, awkwardly loud in the silence. He’s looking at the maps too, frowning deep in thought. “Um, you’ll have to check with Xavier, probably, but… the new solution is holding pretty well. So we’ll be good on fuel, either way.”

“Still…” Varian murmurs.

Yong just shrugs. “I think we could make it.”

Hugo says nothing— he doesn’t know enough to add in. But he tilts his head and watches the three of them, heads bowed over the map, exchanging glances like they’re words instead, and wonders just what they’re so afraid of. 

Varian presses his lips, but finally nods, shooing Ruddiger off the parchment and rolling the map up, handing it over to Nuru. Ruddiger crawls back up in his shoulder, gears whirling. “Well, all right then. We should be fine, so long as we stop near a city in the next two weeks. You’ll have to check with Lance about food storage, though. You know how the northern cold affects his greenhouse.”

“That’s my next stop.” Nuru takes back the map and tucks it under her arm. “Though, actually, there’s something else I need to tell you guys… it’s very important.” She looks over at all of them, expression grave, and gestures them in close. Yong leans in. So does Varian. Hugo, a little curious despite him, leans in to. Is he _finally_ getting access to some actual dirt? He’s only been on the _Aphelion_ for a month—not long enough to really get an _in_ with any of the cliques. 

“Okay.” Nuru takes a deep breath. “Now, I don’t know if you guys have noticed…” Her voice lowers, goes conspiratorial and hushed, as if sharing a secret. “But…”

“But?” Yong prompts, looking terrified. 

Solemn-faced, steel-eyed, Nuru points behind their heads. Up on the wall, the clock ticks.

“It’s lunch time.” 

There’s a beat of silence. They stare at her. Nuru grins at their blank faces and straightens up with a laugh. “Come on,” she says, as Yong starts to giggle and Varian rolls his eyes. “You guys have been in here all morning. Let’s eat!”

Lunch is a noisy affair.

Hugo had learned very quickly that _yes_ , they do in fact eat just as good while out on the sky as they did that first day in port. Hugo takes the usual place behind Varian, watching the shorter boy scoop up his portion of… well, actually, Hugo’s not really sure _what_ it is, Varian had said it was some kind of curry from Yong’s home country. Lance, as Hugo has come to learn, likes to experiment with different foods from the cultures they visit, as well as the personal favorites of all the crew members. Today is Yong’s turn, apparently, but Hugo can’t help but be a little concerned by the amount of water set out on the table. 

“It’s called Kua Kling,” Varian supplies, handing Hugo the spoon. “It’s Yong’s favorite; his mom used to make it for him, so Lance learned the recipe.” 

That’s… really sweet actually. Hugo’s gunna puke. 

Hugo takes the spoon and scoops himself a portion onto a bed of rice. Varian looks like he wants to say something at the amount Hugo takes, and the blond does notice that Varian has a miniscule portion in comparison to the amount of rice. 

“It’s spicy,” Varian says, eyeing him. “Like _really_ spicy.” 

“Bah,” Hugo says, “can’t be that bad. I’ve been all over the place, goggles, and let me tell you, if I haven’t found a food that can kill me yet, it’s because it doesn’t exist.” 

Varian looks like he wants to say more, but he stops himself, and instead his face splits into an evil little grin. “Alright,” he says, “but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” 

Hugo scoffs, shaking his head. He’ll decide what is and isn’t too spicy, _thank you_. 

Varian’s smirk remains firm, even when they sit down side by side. Ruddiger slips under the table, already looking for scraps to play with. Hugo can see Yong down the table, bouncing in his seat as he practically shovels the curry and rice mixture into his mouth. Yong’s face splits into a big grin, looking absolutely delighted. The sight makes Hugo feel a little braver about the curry; if this kid can eat it, so can he.

The seat Hugo had claimed that first night has very quickly become his for every meal; everyone seems to just sit in the same spot every time. It also seems, however, that everyone had been scared to sit next to Varian. Hugo’s not entirely sure why; _yeah,_ goggles runs a tight engineering crew, but really, why shouldn’t he? At least Varian _cares_. Hugo’s seen some shit engineers while onboard the _Rapture_ , all of them just as annoying as you’d think they’d be. 

At least the pipsqueak has _standards_.

Hugo looks down to his food, shrugging and scooping up a large fork-full of his lunch. He can see Varian watching him intently from the corner of his eye, but Hugo refuses to be concerned by it. He shoves the scoop of bright orange curry into his mouth, chewing with a content smile, turning towards Varian—

 _Hot_.

 _Very fucking hot holy **shit**_ —

Hugo nearly spits it out, the spices coating his tongue and _holy shit_ he actually might die, here and now, if he doesn’t get some _fucking water_ —

Varian shoves a cup towards him, already doubled over and nearly crying with laughter. The rest of the table might be able to see his expression, or at least how red Hugo’s face is probably getting, because basically half of the A-shift is here laughing too, _those little bitches_. Hugo reaches for the cup, a little surprised when he finds it to be filled with milk, but _fuck it_ he’ll take it if it means the burning hell on his tongue goes away. Good _fuck,_ who eats this kind of shit for fun?! 

Hugo nabs the cup with shaking hands, chugging it down in one shot. Oddly enough it works better than the water would have, washing the burning spice away almost at once. Hugo slams the cup down with a frantic breath, tears running down his face from the heat. The blond coughs violently, nearly hacking up a lung as his throat refuses to accept the spicy food.

Varian’s still laughing, that little shit.

Hugo shoves his glasses up onto his forehead, wiping frantically at his teary eyes. “You shut the _fuck up_ ,” he grumbles. Varian only laughs harder, pushing another cup of milk towards him.

“I did warn you,” Varian says back, grinning wide. “I literally warned you twenty seconds ago.” 

Hugo snarls a bit, grabbing his fork and scooping up a bit of rice, flicking it with perfect accuracy towards Varian. The shorter teen yelps, shifting out of the way in his seat— and then Hugo feels his heart stutter to a stop as the sticky rice sails through the air and _splats_ right onto Keira’s face. 

There’s a beat of quiet around the table, everyone dead silent with shock. The moment stretches, getting longer and longer with a collective kind of horror as Keira slowly reaches up and picks the rice off her face, a blank look in her eyes. She slowly turns to Hugo, and he sits stock-still under her stare, hardly able to breathe. He’s terrified as this little girl stares at him with a perfectly flat look, her hand full of rice.

“Oh,” she says, and Hugo feels a chill run up his spine. “Is that what’s happening?”

Hugo doesn’t even have time to run. 

Quick as a whip, Keira lunges for her plate and grabs another handful of plain rice, not a bit of the Kua Kling on top of it, and lobs it straight at Hugo. Varian reacts the fastest, lurching out of his chair and hitting the floor with a speed reserved for a man fearing death. Hugo’s not so lucky. The rice hits him bang on, splatting across his face; he takes a second to thank the fact that his glasses were still on top of his head, because rice would be such a bitch to clean—

Things happen very quickly after that.

Catalina seems to see her chance to cause chaos, because she doesn't even hesitate, grabbing a handful of rice and chucking it directly at her father from across the table. Lance screams, bringing up a tray and batting it just before it hits him, the projectile exploding into a shower of rice. Hugo gets more rice to the face, as does _literally everyone else_ ; the only person saved from the fray is Varian, who is safely hiding under the table. Eugene snags some kind of vegetable, screaming a fierce war cry as he throws it straight over the polished wood of the table and directly into Lance’s face. The large man isn’t prepared for a second wave, nearly falling off his chair from the force of the hit. 

Hugo ducks down under the table, narrowly dodging as the screaming starts, a series of loud crashes and laughter ringing through the room as the entirety of A-shift descends into madness. Hugo can hear Lance’s frantic squeals for mercy, as well as his daughters’ evil laughter. The blond crawls for just a second longer, trying to head down the length of the table towards the exit. 

Yong has managed to find his way down under the table as well, hastily shoveling as much of the curry into his mouth as he can before it’s taken for battle. Hugo takes a second to laugh at the hamster-cheeked boy, Yong unabashedly stuffing his face like a child possessed, before Hugo turns away and crawls for the door again. He’s stopped by Varian, who seems to have had the same idea, and Ruddiger, the automaton delighting in the chaos. Hugo tries to push past the smaller teen, shoving Varian out of the way. Varian, ever the bitch, shoves back just as hard. 

They keep roughhousing under the table for a second, before a sudden shout of “Ah-hah!” startles them both, the two of them gasping in shock as their ankles are grabbed. Cassandra pulls them both out from under the table, her face aglow with mischief; she has rice in her hair and a splash of the orangey-red spice mixture from the Kua Kling across one cheek. She drops their legs with a sinister grin, then picks up—

Oh _shit_ she got a hold of dessert somewhere along the line. 

Cassandra raises two slices of pie off the table, tipping the plates so the dessert slides off. Varian lets out a small scream of laughter as the pie hits him, and Hugo only swears, a muffled, “Ah, _shit_ ,” as the pie splats onto his _fucking shirt_. 

Cass grins, going for another plate, but Varian scrapes up a handful of pie from his shirt, rolling out from under her and tossing it; it splatters across her jacket. Hugo takes the distraction as well, scooting out of the way as Eugene, standing on the table, manages to dump an entire bowl of salad on Cassandra’s head. She lets out a shriek, dropping the plates and trying to shake the lettuce from her hair, before launching up to borderline tackle him. 

“Get the _fuck_ back here, Fitzherbert!” she snarls, and scoops up a bread roll as she steps up onto a nearby chair and runs after the screaming man. Hugo just catches sight of Nuru, casually leaving the room, dodging a ball of rice thrown her way and slipping out the door without a single speck of food on her. There’s another scream, and a resounding _crash_ as the table is upended, tipped on its side to be used for cover as the fight devolves into factions. 

Hugo spots Varian with a basket’s worth of bread buns, and Hugo watches with no small amusement as the shorter boy manages to whip them with perfect accuracy at the people around the table. Hugo himself only just manages to dodge one, grabbing a tray and sliding over so he and Varian stand back to back. Varian looks over to him with a grin, working in tandem with Hugo as they slowly move for the door. Varian takes the offense, clearing the way, and Hugo uses his tray to block projectiles, rice and curry and salad and buns all bouncing off his tray-shield. Eugene lets out another war cry as he snags the last untouched piece of pie, holding the plate high like a weapon as he runs at them.

“On your six!” Hugo shouts, already ducking as Varian spins and lets loose another bun, the soft bread smashing into Eugene’s face. The man yelps and drops like a stone. The pie flies from Eugene’s hand, and Hugo, miraculously, catches it, snagging the plate with only a little fumble. He turns to Varian with an elated look, gesturing to it with a happy grin. The smile widens when Varian looks at him with a baffled amusement, his laughter only just ringing above the anarchy around them. 

“I can’t believe you caught that,” Varian says between giggles, snorting as he shakes his head. “Did you mean to?”

“You know, actually, I _did_?” Hugo says back, just as giggly. There’s something about these people, he thinks, that is fucking ridiculous in every way, and yet they always seem to have such fun—

Hugo’s eyes widen. Cassandra has snuck back around, and this time she has a serving spoon full of rice, aiming directly for them. With a shout she lobs it at them, swinging the spoon in a perfect arc.

Hugo grabs Varian’s shoulder and twists, throwing the other in-between him and the rice. Human shield successful— Hugo gets away scot-free, and only feels a _little_ bad when Varian shrieks at the rice exploding across his back. 

Her work complete, Cassandra cackles, escaping back into the fray. Varian seems shocked for a second, reaching behind him to grab at his back, and snaps his head up with a glare when his hand comes away sticky with rice. Maker, he’s prically covered in it—his back, his face, and even his hair; small, white flakes of it stuck in the strands, a stark contrast to the black in a way that makes Hugo think of stars.

Hugo has to shake himself when Varian’s glare gets a little more pissy, something closer to how he looked at Hugo a month earlier, when they’d first met.

“ _Ass_ ,” Varian says, taking the rice and flicking it towards Hugo. The blond dodges, plastering a smile on his face, still holding onto that stupid piece of pie— 

“What’s going on here?” 

Hugo freezes mid-dodge, heart lodging in his throat. Oh, fuck. The _Captain._

It’s almost impressive, in a way. All that chaos, all that screaming… and the moment Rapunzel speaks, the whole room comes to a screeching halt. 

Rapunzel stands in the doorway, Nuru frowning disapprovingly by her side, blinking down at the mess the room has become. She looks a little wide-eyed, and for good reason: the dining hall is in absolute pandemonium. The wide table has been flipped on its side, the chairs scattered across the room, food splattered all across the walls and dripping down to the floorboards. 

As the room stares up at Rapunzel in horrified silence, a huge scoop of rice falls from Cassandra’s spoon to drop with a heavy splat on the floor. The last slice of pie, somehow still untouched in Hugo’s hand, is held out of reach from Varian high above his head.

Hugo sucks in a sharp breath when her eyes narrow. Oh, shit. Shit shit shit. So much for fostering good relations with the crew, or whatever—any and all good will from the last month is sure to wither once they all get punished for this. Especially because— 

“Okay,” Rapunzel says, one hand propping on her hip. “Who started it?”

As one, every single pair of eyes turns to Hugo. 

Hugo grits his teeth, his fingers curling into his palm. When Rapunzel looks at him, he drops the spoon and shuffles the plate of pie between his hands. It’s the only slice left intact, and somehow that makes him feel even more in the spotlight. Ugh, why did the table have to get knocked over? There’s nowhere for him to put the damn thing! 

“Sorry,” Hugo forces out, through grit teeth. He can’t even remember why he thought starting the food fight was a good idea anymore. Hell, had it even been a conscious decision? No, never mind, he should have known better anyway— should have stayed out of it the moment food started flying. Shit, shit, shit. Okay. He can do this. Damage control.

“I—” he starts, and then snaps his mouth shut. _No excuses,_ Donella’s voice says, ringing through his head, and he swallows the explanations back, meeting Rapunzel’s gaze with a tense jaw and steady eyes. He speaks through his teeth. “I’m— sorry.”

“Hmm.” Rapunzel cups her chin in one hand, thinking; the dining hall has gone dead silent, all eyes fixed on the two of them. After a moment, she nods to herself, and walks across the room. With each step Hugo’s shoulders rise higher and higher, fingers clenching white-knuckled on that _stupid_ plate of pie. 

The Captain finally stops right in front of him, her expression neutral and almost blank. She looks Hugo up and down very slowly. Hugo clenches his jaw, and refuses to look away. Captains are all the fucking same. If she thinks he’s going to grovel, then she’s got another thing coming—

And then every single angry thought comes to a screeching halt, because all Rapunzel does is reach out, take the plate, and pick up the pie slice with her bare hand to take a bite.

“Mmf,” she says, looking pleased, and fans her face with sticky fingers. “Mph— _so good_ — amazing as always, Lance! Your cooking is the _best_.” And then, laughingly, to Hugo’s stunned face: “Okay. You’re forgiven now.”

Hugo blinks fast, because _what,_ but Rapunzel is already turning away, taking another bite from the pie slice. “All right, everyone! Let’s get this cleaned up before dinner! Eugene, grab some buckets, would you?”

“Aye aye, Captain.”

Laughter echoes behind him; Hugo whips around with narrowed eyes. Varian is muffling giggles into his arm, shaking so hard he almost falls over. He’s grinning. “Your face!” he says, when Hugo scowls at him. Varian laughs back at him, bright and mean, and then trails off into a sigh. “Sucks you let Rapunzel take the last bit of pie, though. Now we’ll have to wait till next Friday for Lance to make another…” 

Hugo rolls his eyes and catches the rag Eugene tosses at him with a face, wrinkling his nose at the sharp smell of cleaning solution. “I’m sure you’ll live, goggles,” he says, dryly. “After all, there’s still curry.”

“But do I want to eat Kua Kling, after being hit in the face with it? Thanks for that, by the way. You dick.”

Hugo grins and flips the washcloth in his hands. “Month long probation,” he says, sing-song. He still can’t believe they benched him for _that fucking long,_ honestly. “No engines? No mercy.”

“Shut up and scrub,” Varian replies, irritable, and Hugo takes a moment to laugh in his face before turning back to face the destroyed dining hall. God, the curry is _everywhere_ — Hugo swears he can see some on the ceiling beams. The dining hall is bathed in orange and white, not a single surface left unsullied. This is going to be a _nightmare_.

The rest of the crew seems to have split into groups for the task; Hugo is, by virtue of just standing next to them, shelved into the same area as Varian and the kiddos. No one else seems inclined to complain about the chore— Varian kneels down to start scrubbing without comment, and even Ruddiger, creepy automaton that it is, has jumped down to try a very poor mimicry of cleaning with a rag. Nuru and Yong are heading for the walls. Hugo casts his eyes around and kneels next to Varian, and sits with his chin in his hand.

Two minutes in, Varian pauses for a second before turning to Hugo and narrowing his eyes at the blond. “...Are you making me clean your section of the diner too?”

Hugo, who has not even touched the cleaning cloth after catching it, only grins.

“Ass.”

“Took you two minutes to notice, goggles. No self-awareness _at all_.”

Varian throws the cleaning rag at his face. Hugo dodges it, already laughing. 

The conversation fades from there. Varian goes back to scrubbing the floors, and after a few well-placed stink-eyes, Hugo reluctantly starts scrubbing as well, if only half-heartedly. It seems the crisis has been averted, or whatever. No one looks to be holding a grudge. In fact, if Hugo didn’t know better, he’d almost say it’s the opposite.

They’re cleaning a room ruined because of Hugo’s impulsive actions, and yet there’s no anger in the air at all. 

Instead— there is laughter in the hall, echoing and soft, and conversation has begun again. Varian has turned away from him, chatting with Yong and Nuru, petting Ruddiger absently with his free hand. For a moment there are no eyes on him—no attention paid to Hugo at all—and he sits back on his knees, washcloth gripped tight in his hands, staring down at the floor he’s rubbing polished and clean. His fingers have turned red and prickly from the solution; in the shine of the floor he can see his own reflection, eyes wide.

He looks beside him, across the room—Rapunzel, the Captain, leader of the ship and commander of the crew, on her knees beside them, nudging Lance with one elbow and laughing so hard she nearly falls over in the bucket. She is shoulder-to-shoulder with them, eye-to-eye, and after a moment of watching Hugo has to look away. 

His eyes turn to Varian almost on instinct. Varian, who is grinning—who is looking at Yong with bright fondness and leaning against Nuru for support—Varian, who for a moment turns back and catches Hugo’s eye, and smiles wide and bright.

He’s turned away again, before Hugo can blink, before he can even think to smile back. Hugo looks down at his hands, still for a long moment, and slowly, surely, goes back to scrubbing the floors.

He doesn’t look up again. 

“I still can’t fucking believe you caught it,” Varian mutters when they get back to the engine room. “Of all the impossible bullshit—”

Hugo only snickers, lounging on a rolling chair, his feet haphazardly kicked up on the main control console as he watches Varian piece the rest of the boiler back together. There’s something in the way Varian looks, covered in grease and scowling, that perks Hugo’s interest. _He’d make a good pirate_ , something in him muses, _if he’d just give up the moral streak_. 

A nice dream, Hugo supposes, but not one grounded in reality.

He rolls his eyes, rocking back and forth in his chair. It squeaks with every turn. Hugo hates the noise, but it’s funny to watch a vein get larger and larger in Varian’s forehead every time the chair squeals. Varian still has rice in his hair, Hugo notes with amusement, little specks of white that look _hilarious_ stuck in that black mop.

Varian takes hold of one of the broken hinges, using a pair of pliers to grip tight and try to wedge it back into something akin to straight. He lets out a little grunt when the metal refuses to give, adjusting his gloved grip on the pliers and getting a little rougher with his force. Hugo shifts his weight on the chair, delighting in the irritating noise it makes.

 _Squeak, squeak_.

Varian pulls harder, finally getting the metal hinge back into place. 

“You’re just mad because you could _never ever_ catch that,” Hugo shoots back, finally acknowledging Varian’s gripe about the pie. “Not in a million years.”

The tips of Varian’s ears are red. Hugo feels something mean in him laugh, but also feels something else stir deep in his chest. He keeps smiling. 

“I’m just mad because I got used as a _human shield_!” Varian shouts back, his voice echoing as he sticks his head inside the boiler. Hugo snickers, biting his tongue. 

_Squeak, squeak_. 

“Not my fault you put your trust in me.” Hugo shrugs. “That was your mistake.”

Varian scoffs, but doesn’t reply for a second. The silence echoes oddly, and Hugo is suddenly reminded of that first night, when he had bunked on Varian’s floor— the sudden feeling of having said the wrong thing.

“Excuse me for trying to see the good in someone,” Varian finally says, only just audible through the echoes of the boiler. The engine room is running at full capacity, a cacophony of sounds and steam, people milling about carrying all kinds of tools and supplies. Ruddiger chitters as he paws at a loose bolt like a cat, chasing it across the metal floor. There’s an awkward silence, and Varian finally crawls further inside the boiler, wiping his gloves idly on his apron. Hugo can see him biting his lower lip through the blown out access doorway.

 _Squeak, squeak_. 

Varian opens his mouth, looking about to speak—but he never gets the chance. All at once, the ship _shudders_ under them, the whole of the _Aphelion_ rattling down to her structural pillars. Hugo topples right off his chair, landing hard on the floor as Varian cries out in pained surprise. Hugo looks over to see Varian rubbing at his head, having cracked it against the metal edge of the boiler.

There’s no time for concern— Varian is on his feet in an instant, already up and looking around. The engineers all look at him as he power-walks to the control panel, tapping at some of the buttons and looking at the readings from multiple gauges. They all seem to be _wiggling_ , the little needles flicking sporadically up and down. 

Hugo gets up off the floor, hissing through his teeth at the ache of pain, and limps over to stand next to Varian, peering down at the gauges.

“Wind gust?” he asks, watching as a few of the warning lights begin to flicker. Something settles in his gut; Hugo reaches idly for the sword at his hip. 

“Nah,” Varian says, eyes narrow and sharp on the readings. “We might be small but we’re not _that_ small—”

The _Aphelion_ rocks again. Hugo has to cling to the control panel to stay upright, but Varian doesn’t so much as flinch, his legs bending to account as the floor shifts under them all. There’s a few panicked shouts as people fall over. Varian’s eyes snap up to his crew, suddenly looking a little more concerned. 

“Off the scaffolds!” he yells, voice booming from such a small body. “On ground level _, now!”_

Men and women scramble to follow his orders, some going so far as to hop the banister to the ground. Varian seems content at that, tapping at one of the gauges with a concerned look. 

“What the hell is it?” Hugo mutters, grabbing the control panel as another shake rocks the ship. Varian doesn’t answer, turning on his heel and sprinting from the main panel to the stairs. He races up the scaffolding, running up four flights of stairs and around to the back of the engine to a smaller, secondary display near the very top. Hugo follows, biting back a yelp when the ship gives another hearty rock and his bad side slams against into the metal railing. 

The secondary display seems just as sporadic as the first. Hugo can’t make heads or tails of it, but whatever he sees there makes Varian hiss with alarm. As Varian begins to mess with a set of dials, Hugo braces himself against another quake and casts a concerned look over the engine area. The catwalk is worryingly empty: it’s just them left, the crew sent to safety.

“If I’m right, and I _really_ hope I’m not—” Varian says, turning fully to the panel as he begins to hit more buttons, “—then we might have trouble.”

Hugo huffs out a breath, glaring when he sees that Varian looks almost unphased. The smaller teen is running on pure adrenaline, from the looks of it, his hands moving over the panel and reading outputs like he was born doing it. 

Hugo looks to him, raising a brow. “What kind of _tro_ —”

Something flashes by the window. 

Hugo stops mid-word, breath catching in his throat. He lunges for the window, hands bracing against the engine as the ship shudders again. The lights flicker and fade and then burst back on, stuttering now, dimming. 

Varian is shouting his name; beneath his hands, Hugo can feel the whole ship shaking, thin and fine tremors that crawl up his arm. The sky outside the porthole window is bright red and bleeding gold, a dark sunset that’s painting the whole sky bloody, heavy clouds like mountains caging them in, the sun a swollen yellow spot half-taken by the horizon. And there—hidden in the clouds, flashing so quick his eyes can hardly follow it—

The glint of silver scales.

The intercom bursts into life with a tinny echo and crackling static. _“INCOMING_ — _”_ Rapunzel shouts, and then her words cut off as the whole ship _rocks._

The floor falls out from his feet.

Varian screams, half-fear and half-rage; Hugo crashes into him and they both go sliding down the flat part of the scaffolding. The ship has gone near _sideways_ for a moment, and Hugo’s breath strangles in his throat in one moment of ice-cold fear. They’re on the catwalks. Oh, _fuck_ , they’re on the catwalks, four stories up, and they’re _falling_ —

There is one awful instant of weightlessness, and then Varian catches his hand and wrenches him away from the ledge.

Gravity slams down on them like a hammer. Varian’s arms make an awful creak as he strains to hold Hugo’s weight over the abyss; Hugo’s arm wretches near out of its socket. They slide sideways and slam into the railing of the scaffolding, the impact jarring Hugo’s glasses right off his face. 

Already, the ship is creaking back upright; Hugo scrambles for a foothold and nearly falls over again, the world spinning before his eyes. He can hardly see straight—without his glasses the whole world has gone blurry and out of focus, impossible to understand. There’s a thin scream in the air, a wailing alarm, and around them the engine room lights are flickering, on and off, on and off. 

In that static flicker, Varian’s face has gone dead white. His grip on Hugo’s wrist is so tight it’s bruising. 

“Hugo!” 

The lights flicker, then fade, then falter. And as another jolt rocks the engine room, those tinny copper lights flare up and burn out all at once, plunging the whole ship into darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Anna-** Oof, ouchie, our boys. Gotta love meeting the local wildlife! We had a blast writing this chapter, lots of fun and games until the plot hits you like a hammer- the best kind of chapter, IMO! Thanks for reading, as always lads!! See you in the next one!
> 
>  **Iza** \- Obviously the journey wasn’t going to be smooth sailing forever, you know?? Fun times, fun times. Writing Nuru, Yong, and the crew in general through Hugo’s eyes was certainly a fun experience! He’s slowly but surely finding his place in this chaotic household, though… time will tell if he accepts it, ahaha. Hope you guys enjoyed!! And see you all again soon!
> 
> Themes: _Romanian Wind_ by Hans Zimmer, _Young Volcanoes_ by Fall Out Boy, _Menu Theme_ from Battleblock Theater, and _Trouble _by Bellstop!__
> 
> _  
> _Tumblr can be found[here](https://varian-and-the-seven-skies.tumblr.com/) and spotify can be found [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5UMJcoECqWJPD05ax3LV3E?si=j5bIlJxTQQywSNzngYHpJg)_  
> _


	4. Bully the Dragon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hugo faces a dragon and makes a friend. One of these things is more terrifying than the other.
> 
> Hint: its not the dragon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Friday, all! 
> 
> It’s been awhile since our last update, but we’re super excited to share this next chapter with you all! Thank you so much for all of your lovely comments and support! It means a whole lot aaaaa
> 
> Also, a head’s up: PLEASE HEED THE WARNINGS. This chapter is a wild ride, but there’s definitely some graphic fighting going on. Take care of yourself!
> 
>  **Warnings:** cursing, violence, somewhat graphic wild animal death, blood, near death experiences, heights, falling, and general swashbuckling action. If there’s anything we missed, let us know and we’ll add it on here!

The lights flickering back on is one of the best things Hugo’s ever seen. 

He’s not one to be easily spooked, but there’s something about the idea of being trapped on a dead ship that strikes him hard. He’s seen what happens to those who get left behind once the lights go out, the men and women who manage to survive on the floating corpses that are ships without power. 

It’s never pretty. 

“Shit,” Hugo hisses, when the power first dies, and climbs up to his knees, trembling. His shoulder aches. It’s dark, but Hugo runs his hands along the floor, searching desperately for his lenses. They’d gotten knocked off by the fall and if they’re broken, fuck, if they’re broken—! 

His hand knocks against wire frames and Hugo exhales through his teeth, weak with relief. They feel okay—one lens cracked all the way through, but they’re holding together, and the other lens is whole. Hugo shoves the frames back on and tries to climb to his feet.

The ship is still shaking, a faint and thin tremor that travels through him. Power is beginning to flicker back on. The lights are off for another few, heartstopping seconds, and when they finally flick back on the first thing Hugo sees is Varian’s face, pale and scared, looking at him with such an open concern that Hugo feels struck by it. People in his life don’t feel _concerned_ , they don’t worry about each other’s well being.

They don’t _care_. 

The metal of the catwalk is cool under his hands, even as the ship rolls back upright. It’s a sickening feeling, the shifting back and forth as the _Aphelion_ sways from the force of whatever hit them, but Hugo doesn’t have too much time to reflect. Already Varian is flying back to his feet, rushing to the display panel he’d been looking at before they’d been hit. 

“Hugo! Ground level!” he yells over the sudden blaring of countless alarms, a brisk command that Hugo knows Varian expects him to follow. Varian doesn’t wait to see if Hugo actually listens, muttering to himself as he looks over the gauges once again. The ship rocks a third time, nowhere near as badly as before, but down below some of the crew shout in fear. The engine lets out an unhappy whine, the heart of the _Aphelion_ huffing as she begins to pick up her pace. It’s obvious that the Captain is trying to outrun whatever hit them—

A loud _bang_ echoes from the outer wall of the engine room. The lights flicker wildly. Hugo snaps his head to the side, and beside him Varian sucks in a sharp, furious breath.

The wall has dented inwards, Hugo realizes, and he pales. The power needed to _dent_ a ship hull is unbelievably high, even for a small ship like theirs. Any ship worth her salt is made to weather storms, from the smallest winds to a hurricane; for something to just casually punch a dent that looks to be almost two meters radius…

 _Well_. 

Varian sprints past Hugo, snagging the blond’s wrist as he runs past. Hugo finds himself dragged down the stairs of the scaffolding. It’s slow going—every few minutes another jolt rattles the ship, and more than once Hugo has to grab at the railing to keep his feet. 

There’s another _bang_ , just as loud as the first one, accompanied by a few screams, as a wall on the other side of the engine room gets punched in. This time Hugo can see clear out into the skies beyond for just a few inches, sunlight striking through the small hole. The engine room is suddenly so much louder, the winds from the outside screaming through the small hole in the hull. It drowns out even the constant wail of the klaxon alarm ringing through the engine room.

They hit the ground level at last; Hugo’s never been so happy to have solid metal under his feet. If the floor weren’t so dirty he’d kiss it. Varian doesn’t seem to care, still running for the main console… until he sees the hole in the wall. 

“You’re kidding me!” Varian howls like an angry cat, looking at the broken outer hull with unbridled rage. “Another _fucking_ hole in my _fucking_ ship, by the Moon—”

His tirade cuts short. Varian snaps his head to the side. Hugo stills. For a moment he doesn’t understand why Varian’s gone quiet.

And then, just off in the distance, quiet but still audible… he hears it.

A roar.

It carries over the winds, soft and nearly drowned out by the howling currents of the air, but it’s there. Hugo’s hair stands on end. He takes one step back. 

Varian pauses—he must have heard it too—before gritting his teeth. “ _Oh, let’s go north-east_ ,” he hisses to himself, dragging Hugo along as he runs towards the main control panel again. “It’s not like it’s bloody _hatching season_ , no, we’ll just waltz right in with no trouble at all—”

The lights flicker for another heart-stopping second, but come back on with an aborted pulse. Everyone in the room breathes a sigh of relief; Varian barks at them to get moving. The engineers scatter to the wind, everyone running to their emergency posts like it’s their only chance of survival. Knowing the way Varian runs things, it probably is. Hugo follows Varian— probation means no assigned emergency job— but the black-haired teen ignores him quite entirely, reaching for something on the very end of the display panel. 

Varian snatches up the microphone for the intercom to the main bridge, flipping a switch on the display. Static crackles, tinny through the tube, and then they are both listening to Rapunzel’s frantic voice calling out from on the other end.

“—okay?” Hugo hears her yelling. “ _Varian_? We were hit right near the engine room, are you—”

“Fine!” Varian squawks over her. “We’re fine, all heads accounted for! We’ve got two big fuckoff craters in our hull, but all crew’s accounted for. What the hell is going on up there?” 

“voaghul!” Rapunzel spits. “Great, stupid lizard came out of nowhere—” Her muttering fades off, the Captian yelling something to a crew member away from the microphone. For a moment the line goes silent. When she comes back, she’s on a new tangent. 

“What’s the damage down there?” she asks, a little more forcefully. Before they can answer, the ship _rocks_ again, and Varian hisses through his teeth, clinging to the main tube of the intercom to keep from being thrown.

Hugo’s not so lucky. 

The blond shouts as his feet go out from under him, falling fast on his ass and beginning to slide down towards the cracked hull. Hugo feels his heart stutter—

And stops dead as Varian snatches the back of his coat. 

The _Aphelion_ swings like a pendulum; Hugo can hear multiple groans and complaints from the engineers as they slowly stop, the body of the ship settling with a groan. Varian finally lets go of Hugo’s coat, shaking the ache it had caused his hands. 

“Can you stop falling for twenty seconds?” the shorter teen spits. “I can’t keep catching you, I have more important things to worry about! Hurry up and get your sky legs!” 

Hugo sneers, rolling onto his front and pushing himself up. He looks to a nearby window, larger than the porthole he’d caught the flash of silver through. He can hear Varian reading out a series of numbers from the panel to Rapunzel, the two of them bickering, their voices snap back and forth as the stress begins to chafe. 

The window is only a meter wide, a huge square of glass that Rapunzel had once claimed was to allow the engineering team a little sunlight into their cave of metal and steam— she must not know engineers very well. They are a species that _lives_ for the dull light of electrical bulbs and blinking indicators. Hugo’s not complaining now though. The window allows him to see out into the clouds beyond, the early evening sun bright as it bounces off fluffy white clouds. The sky is painted a fiery red, like a slash of blood across the aether. Hugo squints into the sunlight, scanning the ruby spaces between all the white, trying to catch a glimpse of—

 _There_.

Hugo reels back as a large animal bobs and weaves through the spaces between the clouds. There’s another roar, this time much louder, and it shakes in his ears. The glass of the window rattles in the echo. 

There, again—he watches as the creature flits through the sky, flying high on four large silver wings. Its thin body coasts along on air currents as it makes another pass for the _Aphelion_. Its shadow is massive as it crosses over the window— Hugo sees a flash of silver and white scales as the bloody _dragon_ disappears under the ship. The floor shudders, and Hugo stumbles, another roar echoing through the engine room. 

“Hey... goggles?” Hugo calls nervously, drawing out the nickname. It breaks Varian from where he’s been snatching paper from a small printer attached to a seismometer. Varian’s eyes are wide, comically so. Hugo can feel his own expression fall into something concerned. “What the fuck is happening?” 

Varian seems thrown by the question for a second, before he waves Hugo away from the window. He goes back to his seismometer readings for a second, waiting for Hugo to get closer. 

“I forgot, you’ve never taken this route, right?” Varian finally asks, taking a pen and beginning to draw all over the seismometer’s charts. There’s a few huge spikes in the readings, where they’d been hit—Varian seems to be trying to calculate something, muttering to himself as he scribbles frantic calculations all over the paper readout. 

“Can’t say I have,” Hugo says, because he really hasn’t. Donella flies them all over the seven skies, it’s true, but she’s never dared to get so close to any of the major settlements— let alone Corona with its energy shield. It would be suicide for a pirate. Hugo’s never flown the route between Corona and Lunos— but the animal looked somewhat familiar to something he’s dealt with aboard the _Rapture_ , if not a different breed. 

“It looked like a wyvern,” Hugo says, and Varian grits his teeth. 

“It’s a type of wyvern,” the shorter boy mutters— the lights flicker again. “It’s called a voaghul, very fast, very dangerous, and _very_ —” He’s cut off by the ship rocking again; Varian’s penline goes squiggly as he wobbles. Varian curses bitterly, before righting himself and continuing his scribbling. “— _Very_ protective of their nests. They have a way of cloaking themselves, bloody lizards aren’t quite invisible but they can reflect light—” Another shudder of the _Aphelion_ , another muffled swear from Varian, “and the stupid things attack anything that’s shiny because they think it’s a rival!” 

_Oh_. Hugo sees the problem now. 

“We’re very shiny,” Hugo says slowly. Varian’s head snaps up from his calculations, a sneer dancing over his face.

“Very good!” Varian snaps. “Yes, we’re shiny! And if we don’t get the hell away from it, it’s going to _knock us out of the fucking sky_!” 

He finally seems to find what he was looking for from his numbers, snatching the microphone for the bridge again. “It’s an adult!” Varian yells into it, “Hits too hard to be a juvenile!” 

Rapunzel seems to calm at the information. “Perfect!” Her voice echoes through the intercom. “It’s protecting a nest, then!” 

“Just get us away from it!” Varian says. “It’s already punched at least two holes in the hull, I don’t want any more!” 

The _Aphelion_ makes a noise like a dying animal, a great, ugly groan as the lights flicker once again. There’s a sizzling _snap_ , distant but audible even through the countless layers of metal and wood between them and the upper deck. Varian goes very pale next to Hugo, his grip on the microphone tightening as they look up. 

The alarms, a blaring, whining noise that had been so constant, shut off with a concerning _whirr_. There’s a beat of tensed moments as everyone pauses in the sudden stillness, the crew of _Aphelion_ looks to the ceiling in muted horror— no one willing to break the thick blanket of quiet that had been thrown over them. Even the winds seem to die, left to fester in the muted air. 

“Well, that’s probably not good,” Hugo mutters into the sudden silence. Varian spares a second to glare at him before going back to the microphone. The silence is deafening- Varian’s voice rings without the alarm to drown it. 

“Was it the—” he starts to ask, before Rapunzel’s voice rings through with more than a little panic. 

“It hit the shield control!”

Varian groans like that sentence personally offends him. 

“Wonderful,” he mutters after a long pause. “Just what I needed on a weekday morning.” 

His head snaps up like he’d forgotten Hugo was standing next to him. “Right,” Varian mutters, “everyone else is busy— you’re not scared of heights, right?” 

“Can’t say I am,” Hugo says, trying to put on airs as a small scream of tearing metal rings out from somewhere further down the length of the ship, closer to the bridge. 

“Good,” Varian says, grabbing Hugo by the wrist and starting to tug. “We’re going to have to go up on the side of the starboard balloon, the shield control’s on the side. voaghul _love_ to try and hit it since it’s a shiny target against the canvas, but it has to stay there to collect the solar—”

“I lied,” Hugo splutters, “I’m terrified of heights.” 

Varian pauses— looks at Hugo. Looks to the left out of sheer confusion, then back to Hugo. He grins, Varian scowls. 

“Are you really?” he asks, something like compassion in his tone.

“I can be,” Hugo shoots back, “if it keeps me from having to hang off the side of a balloon while a dragon tries to kill us.”

The compassion goes right out the window. “Too bad,” Varian says, dragging Hugo along and towards the exit. “If I have to go up there, then so do you.” 

Hugo lags behind, dragging his feet. “I think I’m feeling faint.”

“Shut up and walk.”

“Look, goggles—”

“Varian!” someone shouts, and the argument cuts off. It’s some nobody Hugo’s never seen before, dressed in heavy fireproof clothes; the woman leans over one of the railings, a welding visor pushed up from her face and soot streaking her cheeks. “Varian, the engines— ”

Varian drops Hugo’s arm and runs up, suddenly a whole new shade of pale. “What happened!?”

“It’s engine twelve again, the fixes aren’t holding! It’s going to overheat!”

Hugo hisses through his teeth, feeling his gut drop; Varian reaches up and actually tugs at his hair, eyes wide. “Are you kidding?” he cries. “Now?” And then, before she can say anything— “I’m on it, I’m on it. Tell the others they need to— ”

Varian cuts himself off. “voaghul,” he says. “The shield control. The engines are… other side of the ship. I can’t— ”

The ship rocks again; Hugo grips the handrails. Varian hisses a breath between his teeth, tugs once on his hair, and spins on his heel. “Tell Xavier he’ll have to handle it on his own!” Varian shouts, racing for the exit. “Cut the flynnolium line! If the engine goes while it’s still running, we’re screwed!”

“But— ”

Varian is already gone, no longer listening, and Hugo follows him, the woman’s shout fading out behind them. “Are you sure?” Hugo hisses, trying to keep pace. For someone so small, Varian is apparently really goddamn speedy. “If we drop in height—”

“Xavier’s got it— we just have to trust him.” Varian reaches the main exit door and yanks hard at the wheel, wheezing faintly from the strain. Hugo hesitates, startled, then goes to help, even as he grits his teeth. Great. Wonderful. Now he feels even worse about this whole goddamn endeavor than before. _Trust him,_ yeah, right— haven’t these people ever heard of never letting other people do the most important jobs?

If Hugo knew how the engines _really_ worked, then he could…

No. He can’t. He got off probation just _today,_ for fuck’s sake; there’s no way Varian would let him, and for once, even Hugo has to admit defeat— he can’t handle an engine he doesn’t know in a crisis like this, even if his glasses weren’t cracked to all hell and back. 

But as he yanks the door open, the knowledge settles bitter in his mind. If they’d let him work sooner— if he’d snuck around more— if, if, if. He’s relying on total strangers to save this ship and his own life, and _gods,_ does it grate at him.

But there’s nothing else he can do, and so: the door opens, and Varian runs— and Hugo, seething, follows after him.

In the midst of battle, _Aphelion_ might as well be a different ship. The warm-lit halls are now full of flickering lights and people rushing to and fro, the usual smiling faces gone grim and cold with determination. He sees Keira, rushing past— Catalina, on her heels, with a bucket full of water— both of them heading for the small scattered fires dotting the hallway, dousing them quick and then moving on. Hugo spares them one last glance as they dart past, and then he and Varian are through the main door and on the deck, and he turns his head away, confused on why he’d looked back in the first place.

The main deck is even more crowded— people rushing across the ship, pulling up the sails, pinning down loose bolts of cloth and crates. On the upper deck Eugene wrestles with the steering wheel, cursing so loud Hugo can hear him even from here, Nuru pinning down maps with her foot and barking headings. On the deck Yong is armed with what looks to be his prototype fireworks in hand, a determined clench to his jaw. Up in the sky, cutting through the clouds, Cassandra and a few others are on smaller windsurfer ships, her gun aiming out into the clouds, shooting steady. 

And above them all, by the railing of the upper deck, Rapunzel stands tall, her usually sunny disposition gone cold and focused. Her expression is so unlike the chipper captain Hugo almost trips; her eyes are steely, voice commanding, shouting orders over the howling din of the wind and the distant roaring, the sun setting her brown hair alight with gold.

“Varian!” she calls, when she sees them. “Hugo! With me! We need—”

She doesn’t get a chance to finish. Hugo sees a flash of silver scales dyed red in twilight, and then hears a sickening _crack._ The ship cants sharply sideways; screams rise up, surprised and furious. Hugo stumbles on the deck and finds his feet, scowling— 

He doesn’t notice the next hit until he’s already off his feet, nearly knocking into Varian. 

A hand snatches at his arm, and another wraps around Varian’s shoulders: Lance, wheezing and breathless, standing unsteady with both Varian and Hugo tucked under his arms. “Safe!” he says. “Oh, Sun, I almost didn’t think I’d make it…”

Varian smacks at his arm. “Yep—thank you, thanks, put me down!”

“Hey, hey, make sure you don’t fall— ”

“Down, down, I would like _down_ —”

Hugo blinks, scowls, and kicks at Lance’s ankle, falling easily to his feet when the older man drops them both in surprise. There’s a scathing remark on the tip of his tongue, but Hugo swallows it back with effort. As irritating as that was, if Lance hadn’t caught them…

The ship shudders again, and Lance gives a nervous laugh, reaching out automatically to steady Varian when he cants to the side. “What an evening, huh?” Lance says, and shakes his head. “Be careful on the balloons, okay? I’m not sure how well the harnesses will hold with all the shaking, and Captain’s worried the voaghul might swipe at the shield control again.” 

“We’ll be fine,” Varian says firmly, already heading for the upper deck, but Hugo blanches. 

“Wait,” he says, lingering back as Lance nods and begins to go back inside. “Wait, wait, what was that about—”

“Hugo!”

Hugo takes back every nice thing he ever thought about this fucking crew. He’s going to throw them off the edge of the boat himself. 

“ _Hugo!”_

He snarls under his breath and follows. 

Varian is already at the ladder for the crow’s nest, talking lowly with the Captain; for the first time, Hugo realizes Rapunzel’s armed. She’s drawn her sword— the same kind Hugo has, only of better make, a silver-edged rapier with a pistol tip, a fierce combination of steel and firepower. She holds it steady in both hands. “I’ll cover you best I can,” she’s saying to Varian, intense and focused. “But both of you— _be careful._ Watch out for each other. If you fall—”

“I know,” Varian snaps, and Rapunzel’s lips thin. Varian sighs. “I know,” he repeats, quieter. “We’ve got this— it’ll be _fine_!”

“...Mm.” She turns away, then pins Hugo with a look; he straightens up despite himself. In the deepening twilight light, Captain Rapunzel looks almost otherworldly; green eyes gone pale and near colorless, hair backlit gold, her weapons shining red. She looks like an angel— she looks like a _demon_. “You, too,” she says. “Watch over Varian— I’m counting on you.”

His usual quips wither on his tongue. Hugo nods, and as the ship shudders beneath their feet again, Rapunzel smiles faintly and hefts her weapon. “Good. Now, then, get moving!”

Varian is already climbing the ladder to the crow’s nest; his tone, despite all the chaos, is wry. “Aye, captain.”

“Oh, just climb.”

Hugo bites back a smile, and follows Varian up the ladder. 

It’s almost startling how quickly the mood shifts, after that— the conversation dropped, the severity of the situation falling sudden and heavy on his shoulders. Varian starts up the ladder, not looking back even once, and behind Hugo grips the rungs with uncertain hands, wondering. Is he really going to do this?

Rapunzel has already run off. He can hear her, still, somewhere behind him, shouting orders above the voaghul’s screeching. He looks down at his hands and sighs. 

And he climbs.

Of all the battles Hugo’s experienced, he has to admit this one of the more bizarre ones. By now the sun is setting fully; he can’t even see it anymore, hidden behind the heavy clouds, but the sky is still burning with the last vestiges of the day. Red light stains the whole sky, and the last bit of sunlight turns the white clouds golden; all around them, the black creeps in like ink on canvas, midnight blue and the faintest prick of the evening stars. And through it all— the wind, screaming up a storm, pulling at Hugo’s hair and his coat and stinging icy against his face; the clouds, wispy and full like a fog as the ship cuts through them, tasting of dew; the ladder, the wood slick beneath his gloves, his grip trembling with every shiver of the _Aphelion_. More than once, he has to stop, pressing his forehead against the rungs as the ship sways once more, shaking in the breeze, fragile and weak. 

And as they reach near the crow’s nest, Hugo looks out into the clouds and sees it at last: the voaghul, in full, winding up through the clouds.

It’s beautiful— it’s terrible— it’s almost impossible to see. Long and sleek and small, almost serpentine, but its wings are twice its length and so big they could be sails. And so many! Two sets of wings at least, Hugo thinks, and god— the speed of such a thing, the power— no wonder each hit nearly knocks the Aphelion sideways. The momentum alone…

It's the scales that catch Hugo’s attention, that steal his breath from his lungs. Because in the darkening evening sky, those reflective shining scales, like millions of overlaid mirrors, are all reflecting a red so bright and brilliant that it is blinding.

 _Holy shit,_ Hugo thinks, taken momentarily speechless, and then the voaghul’s eyes lock on him.

 _Oh, **shit**_ — _!_

“Duck!”

He follows the order on instinct, closing his eyes and pressing himself flat against the ladder; a loud crack rends the air, and the voaghul screeches, the sound like shrieking metal. Hugo pries one eye open just time to see Rapunzel load in another shot, raising her weapon to shoot again, the voaghul’s eyes now fixed on her and wings raised as if to dive.

“Hugo!” His head snaps up. Varian stares down at him from above, already in the crow’s nest, reaching for Hugo’s hand. “While it’s distracted— hurry!”

Hugo takes his hand and bites back a yelp when Varian hefts him into the crow’s nest with one yank— holy shit, for a scrawny thing he sure is, uh, strong— and takes a moment to kneel on the floor, trying to catch his breath. 

“Okay,” Varian says, moving away and beelining across the small room. He picks up something from a bolted chest— harnesses, Hugo realizes— and tosses one over. Hugo snatches it right from the air. Varian blinks. “Oh, nice catch.”

“Thanks,” Hugo wheezes, finally starting to breathe properly again. “I try.”

Varian blinks at him again, looking bemused, and then shakes his head. “Crisis,” he says, to himself, and picks up a second harness and starts strapping himself in. “We don’t have a lot of time before the voaghul goes back for the shiny thing, so—”

“Got it, got it,” Hugo says, picking himself off the floor. He unfurls the harness and slips it on, clipping it around his front. “I’m listening or whatever; make this quick, okay? If I have to stay up on this deathtrap a second longer than I have to…” He lets his tone trail off, warning.

Varian rolls his eyes. “Right, yeah, I know,” he mutters, tightening a loop of leather around his body as he adjusts the harness. Hugo finds himself mildly distracted by the way it cinches Varian’s shirt snug, showing off a trim waist—

“ _Hugo_.” Varian’s tone is dangerous. “Important information. Happening. _Right now_.” 

Hugo’s face flips into a smile, staring intently at the wall directly above Varian’s head. The shorter boy scowls, connecting the rest of the harness around each leg. The harnesses are things Hugo’s been using since he was basically an infant—Donella once had to punch extra holes in the belts to tighten them enough around Hugo’s legs as a kid; he’d almost slipped out of the straps enough times she’d been forced to.

The harnesses of the _Aphelion_ are identical to the ones on the _Rapture_ , albeit a little cleaner. Two thick belts wrap around each leg, connecting to one larger main bet that cinches around Varian’s waist. The largest belt has two brass clips attached to an arm length rope each, each with a carabiner at the end; they’re made so that you always have at least one carabiner connected to a series of points and wires anchored around the ship, leap-frogging your way across while suspended overtop of a near-infinite drop. 

Despite the familiarity, Hugo feels his mouth go dry. 

“We’re going for the shield control panel,” Varian reminds him, cinching one of the belts around his legs. Hugo begins to do the same, not really thinking as he does so— this is the kind of motion he’s done a million times before, just never with a dragon involved. Even in Don’s territory, the _Rapture_ is big enough that the stupid lizards wouldn’t dare try and fight the ship. Though closer to their home-city, the wyverns there are a _much_ larger breed as well, nowhere near as fast as the voaghul and probably twice as stupid—

“Starboard balloon, like I said. It’s about half-way up. You’re going to follow me and work as my extra hands, clear?” Varian’s using his leadership voice. It’s like being ordered around by a kitten. 

“Aye-aye, captain.” Hugo grins, trying to ignore the sound of roaring coming from the trapdoor under them. It doesn’t really work. The room they’re in is small, more of a metal box than anything, can’t be more than four meters square by Hugo’s estimate. It’s nearly empty save for two exits, one leading down the ladder they’d just climbed, and one of those bank vault style doors the _Aphelion_ uses so often, leading to the top of the balloons outside. There’s a large rack with an assortment of sizes of harnesses, all of them just as immaculate as the ones Hugo and Varian are currently wearing, hanging just above a few crates of what Hugo assumes to be spare parts. There’s a large wire for anchoring the tethers set deeply into the far wall, running the width of the room and beyond the door. Varian idly plays with one of the carabiners hanging from his belt, scowling faintly at Hugo’s sass. 

“Until we can get it running, the outer shields aren’t going to work,” Varian says, finally, ignoring the joke. “And we can’t run until they’re functional— the voaghul’s too fast. We’ll be scrap metal if we even try it— and I’m _not_ the Captain.”

Hugo nods like this is normal. Why the _fuck_ is it that he and Varian have to go? Hell, Hugo even understands them sending himself— you always send the expendable crew, as Donella had taught him— but Varian is lead engineer and apparently one of two people who know how to make their mysterious engine fuel… if anything he should be up on the bridge, where it’s safest. 

But Hugo watches as Varian takes one of the carabiners on his harness and clips it to a thick wire lending towards the heavy, metal door next to them; Varian acts like he’s done this a million and one times. Knowing how Varian treasures the _Aphelion_ , he probably has. Hugo sighs, clipping his own carabiners to the cable. Varian scrounges around for a second in one of the crates, muttering curses as the ship rocks again. It’s less noticeable here, up on the balloons as opposed to the main body of the ship— the voaghul is attacking the shiny metal as opposed to the canvas, thankfully. If it were to puncture a balloon they’d have much more of a problem, in Hugo’s opinion.

Varian makes a little _ah-hah_ noise, holding up what looks like a hunk of wires and metal. It… looks like trash, if Hugo’s brutally honest, but Varian holds it like it’s made of gold. “ _Perfect_ ,” he says, looking up from it to grin at Hugo with something almost manic in his eye. Hugo’s confused face only barely dampens his excitement. 

“The voaghuls always go after the solar converter,” Varian says, shaking the part. “That’s what’s keeping our shields from full capacity.” 

Hugo nods like that means something. Sure, he’s heard of solar energy, but the _Rapture_ especially doesn’t have time for fancy gimmicks and fun little fantasy projects; everything needed to _work_. It’s a very _coal-or-bust_ type of environment, so Hugo can’t help but feel a little in the dark as to why they’d leave such an important thing like their _shields_ to something as flaky as solar energy. 

Varian doesn’t seem to want to explain anymore, shoving the part at Hugo. He snags a small bag from the hooks, also throwing it to the blond without looking. Hugo fumbles it, only just keeping track of the part as he tries to juggle. 

“ _Don’t drop that_!” Varian hisses, eyes wide as he looks at the part. “That’s our only one! We lose that, we’re screwed.”

“In that case maybe don’t _throw it at me_!” Hugo snaps, shoving the part into the bag. 

Varian scowls at him, but the ship rocks again— outside, someone screams. They both go quiet, casting a glance down to the deck below. 

“Solar converter,” Hugo says, finally.

“...Solar converter. Right.” Varian’s a little pale. Right, Hugo realizes—he actually, like, cares about this ship, the people on it, if they’re okay. Poor idiot. “This way.”

Beyond the door, there’s a thin bridge trailing along one of the supports for the main sails, ending right at the bottom edge of the main envelope. For the first time, gripping the railing and inching his way after Varian, Hugo realizes just how high they are—not just in the air, but above the ship. To fall from this height, even if they hit the ship deck instead of the distant ground—

Hugo shudders, once, and then turns his eyes away. Holy fuck, why had he agreed to this again? 

... _Had_ he agreed to this?

Either way, it’s far too late to back out now. Varian has reached the end of the bridge, unwinding four rope tethers from the railing, the ends trailing up away from view on the edge of the balloon. He passes two to Hugo, and then clips the other two to his harness. 

“It’s attached all the way up to the top,” Varian informs him. “You know how it works?”

“I have an idea.” Hugo clips on the tethers, lips thin. Yeah, he has an idea, all right. It’s not an appealing prospect. The tethers may be attached to the top of the envelope, but the winds up here are brutal, and if they aren’t careful they could get dragged out to the abyss and then thrown back so hard the lines will snap right in two—Hugo’s seen it happen. They’ll have to crawl their way up, clipping into the handholds set every ten feet, just to keep the tethers taut enough to stop them from swinging. That’s dangerous enough on it’s own, but considering the _fucking dragon_ side-checking the ship every few minutes…

Ha, ha. Yeah. No.

Hugo hisses a breath through his teeth, and leans his weight back on the tether with a sigh. “Lead the way, goggles,” he says to Varian.

“Oh, sure, _I_ lead…” Varian sets his feet on the railing, takes a breath and then starts climbing. Hugo rolls his eyes and follows him.

He regrets it immediately.

If the ladder to the crow’s nest had been chilling, if the walk to the balloon had been unnerving, this is a climb straight out of a nightmare. The moment he’s out on the side, the sky just about slaps him over the edge. His fingers dig into the tarp-weave of the balloon; in the darkening sky, the whole side is cast in curving shadow, invisible in the dying daylight. The wind hits Hugo almost at once; he curls his fingers and braces himself against the tarp, breathing into the cloth, icy air stabbing at every bit of exposed skin. The wind is so loud he can’t tell it apart from the voaghul’s roaring, the noise rising and rising to a scream. 

But still, far below, with every inch of progress—battle, the world Hugo has known for almost his whole life. Gunshots and shouting and the constant hum of the windsurfers buzzing through the air, the war-calls and the screams. The golden light is fading, now; the day is done, and in the last lingering rays of red light the voaghul is an invisible and vengeful ghost, impossible to tell apart from the sky.

Hugo’s fingers are ice-cold and numbing; his arms are beginning to shake. The weight of the bag pulling at his side is like a ball-and-chain: it _hurts_ , the strap tight around his throat and the bag slamming against his hip with force enough to bruise. The wind is so wild that even breathing is becoming difficult; every exhale feels like it’s being torn right from his throat. And still— _still_ —the ship shakes beneath their hands, faltering in the air.

“Varian!” Hugo shouts. He can barely see him there, above him—with his lenses cracked and the sun set, Varian is little more than a dim silhouette, the faintest shadow outlined in fading red. “How much farther?”

“Almost there!” Varian shouts back. “I’m almost close enough to clip in—hold on!”

Hugo goes to answer, but the wind picks up, and he snaps his mouth shut and presses his face against the tarp instead, hissing out an exhale through gritted teeth. It takes effort to pry his grip away, to reach up for the next hand-hold. His fingers, he thinks, must be starting to turn blue; they feel like they’re burning, the joints stiff and achy. 

“Varian—”

“Here!”

A hand breaks through the darkness; without thinking, Hugo reaches up and takes it. Varian pulls him up beside him, and for a moment they fumble in the fading light. “The carabiner,” Varian is shouting, voice lost to the wind. “Clip it into—”

The ship _rocks._

Hugo doesn’t even have time to scream. His numb fingers slip right away, the clip falling from his fingers—and then Hugo drops, one tether less, loose in the wind.

He falls ragdoll through the sky for one awful second until the harness snaps him in place; the remaining tether gives a terrifying creak. He is caught in the twist of the winds, thrown about violently in the wake of the ship. The bag around his neck drags at him like a stone; Hugo wheezes, pawing at it, trying to breathe. Above him Varian is shouting, screaming something at him—Hugo curls his nails under the strap, trying to pry the bag loose—

In the air, a distant shriek. The flash of silver scales dyed red, and two-set wings—

—a gunshot—

The ship rocks once more, and Hugo’s last tether to the ship gives a final, screeching creak—and snaps right in two.

Hugo plummets.

The air screams past his ears. The strap of the bag is ripped from his hands. The tether is nothing more than torn and loose thread. He’s falling, Hugo realizes, heart locked in his throat. He’s actually, honestly falling. There’s nothing behind him, nothing to hold onto—he’s going to fall until he hits the ground and then— then— 

_No!_

Varian’s hand snaps out.

He catches the tail end of the harness tether and it’s like hitting ground, only worse; the whiplash almost snaps Hugo’s head back. He’s been caught, he realizes, feeling dizzy and stunned. Varian has—impossibly, incomprehensibly—

Varian caught him.

Hugo stares up, wide-eyed, struck speechless. And beside him, falling silent, the bag with the solar converter—irreplaceable, important, _needed_ —drops through the clouds and vanishes into the abyss, gone in a matter of moments.

Varian’s teeth are grit; his eyes are wide and wild. In one quick move he takes the weathered end of Hugo’s safety line and clips it to his belt. They are hanging out over the drop in its entirety, this one line the only thing keeping them both from falling to their deaths. Hugo grips the safety line with shaking hands and stares. 

“You—” He feels numb. “You caught me.”

“Obviously,” Varian wheezes. He’s shaking a little. “Oh, Moon, you dropped the part, too. That’s— that’s not great. Wow. Okay. Are you hurt?” 

Hugo feels like he’s been struck. Varian caught him. Varian _caught_ him—at the expense of catching the part. At the expense of saving the ship. It doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t connect. He grips the safety harness, watching Varian shake against the ship, and repeats, “You _caught_ me.”

“Stop making it sound like I would’ve let you fall,” Varian snaps back. “I wouldn’t—what kind of person—ugh!”

The voaghul must have hit the ship again; they swing in the air, slamming hard against the heavy tarp of the balloon. Hugo wheezes faintly as his shoulder hits the cloth-weave; Varian sucks in a shaking breath. And high above them both, the solar converter sparks, open to the wind and sky and still very, very broken.

Varian has gone pale; he squeezes his eyes shut. In the dimming light, he almost looks as if about to cry. “I—okay. Okay. We just have to… fix it without the part. Oh, no. No. _Fuck_. Um—”

Something crystalizes in him. Hugo tightens his grip on the harness, and for a moment it feels like everything has clicked into place. He keeps his eyes on Varian, and says, firmer now, sure now, decided: “Let me take a look.”

Varian pauses, rambling cut short, gaze snapping onto him. For a moment he’s silent, still wound tight with tension, and then his jaw clenches, something settling in his expression. 

Varian’s eyes are like a spark, glowing bright in the sunset. With a grunt he wraps his hand in the tether and begins to drag Hugo up towards the shield control panel, Hugo scrabbling for a hold against the thick canvas of the balloon. The wind screams in his ear, even as Hugo gets to the point where he can _finally_ grab at one of the footholds— _thank the Maker_ —and pull himself up onto solid metal once again. He’s still connected to Varian, unable to unhitch with the second line snapped. 

Below them, the _Aphelion_ shudders as the voaghul makes another pass. Hugo can hear the screams rise up again, and another gunshot rings out. He flinches closer to the balloon on instinct.

Varian’s pale next to Hugo, looking into the sparking box with a sense of concern. “Shit,” he hisses, “shit, shit, _shit_. Okay. Any ideas?”

Hugo peeks inside. The shield control panel is a mess of wires and cogs; he can see the sparking piece, black from fire and reeking of burning metal. The piece of garbage that had probably splattered to the ground far below would have fit perfectly. Hugo scowls at that, and brings his face closer for a better look. The little thing is well and truly fried, it’s going to be nearly impossible to—

“Stop,” Varian says, directly to his left. “Stop thinking, start doing, whatever you can. We need to fix it or we’re all going to be dragon food.” His voice is oddly flat, calm where just a minute before it had been panicked. Hugo peeks from the corner of his eye. Varian, while still pale, seems to have flipped a switch somewhere in that big brain of his. This isn’t Varian, the peppy little shit who throws bread rolls and lets the Captain hug him and snarks back and forth with Hugo as easy as breathing.

This is Varian, lead engineer of the _Aphelion_ — and he doesn’t have time for games.

Hugo sucks in a breath through his teeth, looking away and starting to poke around. His gloves aren’t made for this, not for jamming his goddamn fingers into the sparking guts of a machine— he’s going to get electrocuted at this rate. And that’s not a very sexy way to die. 

He keeps looking, gently shifting wires around. There’s a large box, definitely some kind of battery, a few large cables running though, a few large converter boxes... Hugo has _no fucking idea_ what they do… and something else Hugo thinks might be the main shield’s control panel, right after where their lost part was made to fit. That’s the problem, isn’t it? The ruined part is blocking power. 

Hugo shifts a little more, not noticing when Varian gets tugged along by their connected lines. Varian’s peeking over his shoulder, keeping half an eye on Hugo and half an eye on the sky. For good reason, it seems, as the voaghul makes another pass. There’s an unhappy noise of tearing metal and the sharp _ping, ping_ of snapping cables. Hugo can hear the crew yelling, and looks down to see the voaghul burst out from between the main body of _Aphelion_ and the balloons that he and Varian are currently clinging to. Its four wings are tucked close to its body, the voaghul spinning in a dazzling display of silver scales and near white wings, even as it explodes out of the small space it had barrel-rolled its way through. With a fierce cry it spreads its wings the second it’s free, diving deep and disappearing under the main body of the ship. The wind howls as they chase the voaghul through the space between metal and canvas, Hugo’s hair flying wild in the wake of the dragon’s flight. 

He turns back to the shield control panel, trying to ignore the scream of tearing metal. 

“I think I can fix it,” Hugo mutters, looking closer. They may not have solar energy on the _Rapture_ , but he’s seen this shield type before— knows how to bypass certain parts. All it would take was something conductive enough… 

Varian snorts, and Hugo just catches the glint of his own reflection in Varian’s goggles. He looks pale, windswept—almost young, in a way that unnerves Hugo. Hugo isn’t supposed to look like this. He’s supposed to—

And then the sun shines off the cuff in Hugo’s ear, a bright _shing_ of light that nearly blinds him, and his thoughts trail to a halt.

Oh. 

“I’ve got it,” Hugo says, surprised, already reaching up towards his ear. Varian looks to the box, confused, before looking back. He quirks a brow when Hugo takes the earring out, the _Aphelion_ shuddering beneath them. 

“This isn’t the time to change accessories!” Varian screams over the high winds. “We’ve got— _what are you doing_?!” 

The last bit is high-pitched and nearly a yowl as Hugo reaches in with a gloved hand, takes hold of the ruined part, and _yanks_ with as much force as he can get. The part comes out easily, like ripping the core from a pepper. Varian makes a choked sound, his hands flying out to try and stop Hugo— the blond takes the time to slam the busted part into Varian’s open palm.

“Hold that for me, would you?” Hugo grunts, using his free hand to roughly bend the earring from its C-shaped curve into something resembling a straight line. It’s shoddy, but it’ll do. Hugo shoves his hands back into the sparking guts of the shield control panel. The _Aphelion’s_ supporting cables make an unhappy noise. Rapunzel shouts something down below— there’s another gunshot, and a distant explosion, Yong’s whooping laughter. Hugo grits his teeth and keeps working. 

“Look, here,” Hugo says, tugging roughly on a few cables and forcing the power source closer to the control panel. Varian looks about ready to throttle him, but leans in closer, clinging tight to the side of the balloon. “We can bypass the converter. It’ll be ugly, but it’ll do enough to cover our asses.”

Varian looks at the effectively ruined control panel with a grimace, like Hugo’s murdered one of his little automatons. His hands tighten around the burnt out part— he looks close to snapping it in half. 

Still, Hugo doesn’t stop working, the torn parts hanging limp from where he’s forcibly uprooted them. The artistry of all the _Aphelion’s_ intricate interlocking pieces is nice to look at— but Hugo’s not here to look, he’s here to _fix_. Varian’s creation is beautiful, but Hugo’s nothing if not willing to play a little rough to get what he wants.

He takes the bent earring, gently connecting the control panel to the shifted power source. The thing sparks, makes an unhappy puff of smoke. The subtle whine of building electricity makes them both grit their teeth and lean away from the box on the off chance it explodes—

With a sudden noise, a subtle little _whirr_ , the shield control startles to life.

Varian lets out a laugh of shock, a little _ha_ that the winds pick up and toss away before Hugo can really savour it. He can hear the whine of much bigger machinery starting up in the space within the balloon—ah, that must be why it’s up so high in the first place— and with a sudden _crack_ of energy the _Aphelion_ springs to life again. For a while there she had been wilting, like a flower without sunlight, something almost sad.

Now, she’s back to the glorious thing Hugo knows she is.

The buzz of electricity is hard to miss, filtering through the air. Hugo spots the voaghul flips around, a perfectly executed spin, its silvery body getting closer to—

“Oh, _SHIT_!” he yells, instinctively grabbing Varian with one hand and gripping tight to the canvas as the animal swings close to the balloon. It’s nearly deafening, the shriek of the wind as it draws close enough that if Hugo were to reach out he’d certainly make contact with silver scales. Varian screams as they’re nearly ripped from the balloon— Hugo screams right along with him. His frozen fingers ache, digging into the canvas like his life depends on it. 

The voaghul passes them, the winds in chaos in the wake of the massive thing. There’s a sudden wave of clouds that follows it, sucked along by the siphon of air. It makes the canvas that little bit more precarious, slick with condensation and all the harder to cling to. 

“ _Fucks sake_ ,” Varian mutters, once the winds die down a little. Hugo’s inclined to agree.

He looks down, watching the wyvern draw close to the main body of the _Aphelion_ , sees the Captain and Lance and everyone gearing up with any sort of weapon they have, sees the glint of Rapunzel’s shining sword as she cocks it again, taking aim—

The box in front of them _squeals_ , the power surging through it just that little too much. Hugo cringes at the noise— it sounds like a million fingers dragging down an infinite chalkboard, but breathes a little easier when the voaghul lets out a scream of pain— intercepted by the _crack_ of electrical shields springing to life. Both Hugo and Varian lean down, looking to the deck below as the wyvern’s screeching gets all the louder— just in time to see it shudder and seize in the sky from the electricity now running through its entire body.

With a mighty _slam_ the animal hits the polished wood of the _Aphelion’s_ deck, the ship rocks— groaning at the sudden weight. The voaghul’s still alive, amazingly, snarling aggressively as the little figures of Lance, Eugene, Rapunzel, and others Hugo has no name for, begin to gather around it. 

“Careful!” Rapunzel calls, and on the deck the great beast snarls and flails, obviously disoriented and drunk with the shock of the electricity. It seizes every few seconds, rough jolts of its body that send its large wings waving like torn sails. The crew slowly approaches it in a ring, dodging the occasional tail or wing as they draw close.

“I said _careful_!” Rapunzel repeats. “We don’t want to spook it even more, just— _ah!_ ”

She cuts herself off as the voaghul’s drunken flailing gets dangerously close to her, needle-like claws almost tearing her to shreds. Beside him, Varian sucks in a concerned breath. Neither of them move, too suspicious of the downed animal to want to leave the shield control alone. Back on the deck, Eugene sneaks in close to the voaghul’s left side, a sword in hand. Hugo can see the red light of the last lingering sunset glint off the metal, a bright beacon in the coming darkness.

The voaghul sees it too.

With a feral snarl the animal takes a swing for the man. Eugene yelps and scrambles back, tripping over his own boots. All at once, Varian is moving with a frantic shout of Eugene’s name, climbing down so fast that Hugo has no choice but to follow as the carabiner and rope system keeping them tied together tugs him along by the hips. The blond follows unwillingly, trying to watch as the voaghul’s angry yowls get louder and louder, echoing into an empty sky.

Varian moves along the balloon like a man possessed, borderline running along the metal service paths; the wire lines let out a high pitched noise as they feed through the carabiners. Hugo sprints after him, lest he be dragged along on his ass. Varian borderline rips the metal doorway of the crows nest open, rushing inside and only stopping to clip himself into the safety hooks. Hugo follows him in, but just before the door can slam shut behind them—

A gunshot.

Then silence.

Varian tenses even further at the noise, roughly unclipping Hugo’s line from his belt and sprinting for the ladder, not even pausing to remove his harness. Hugo follows, trying to keep pace as Varian slides down the ladder, using his hands and feet as contact points on the outside of the metal to control his fall. 

“Woah, _woah_!” Hugo yells after him, pausing at the top as that head of black hair quickly shrinks away, back down to the deck. The blond scowls— _Eugene’s probably fucking fine_ — and awkwardly follows. He’s _not_ sliding down the ladder, that’s the kind of thing that gets you a broken ankle, and really Varian should know better. 

The minute Hugo hits the open air again, though, he notices a sudden change.

Before, the noises of the _Aphelion_ had been overshadowed by the voaghul’s snarling—but now? All Hugo can hear is the gentle whistle of the wind and the subtle clockwork beating of the ship’s heart.

The voaghul has gone silent.

Hugo’s feet hit the polished wood with an echoing _thump_ , the blond whirling around to get the lay of the situation. The first person he sees is Varian, both hands over his chest as he looks at Eugene being crushed into a bear hug by Lance. The rest of the crew has gathered around the older man, even as he tries to squirm away from Lance’s death grip.

“C’mon fellas!” Eugene is saying, gasping for breath. “Takes more than some stupid frog to kill me, you know that!” 

Hugo can’t help but laugh as Varian huffs out the breath he’d been holding. Varian looks like he’s ready to fall right over, just splat onto the deck and lay there for the rest of the evening. Honestly, Hugo feels the same. His eyes wander, doing a brief head-count. It doesn’t seem like anyone’s gone missing at least— but just past the celebrating group, between the shuffling feet… Hugo sees a sea of silver scales dotted by a sharp crimson. 

The voaghul is dead, limp and draped over the deck like a bearskin rug. There’s a gorey hole right behind its ear, a straight, point blank wound Hugo knows can only be made by a gunshot. He has his own rapier, a gleaming silver blade connected to the barrel of a powerful pistol, but Hugo certainly didn’t fire the shot. 

It’s common knowledge that the Captains of larger ships, typically those with the money to back larger expeditions, own the rapiers as a symbol of power. They’re _expensive_ , the complex mechanisms dainty and intricate— but also because of the sheer amount of gunpowder and small slug bullets needed to truly use it in a fight. Hugo stole his off a dead Captain long ago, Donella encouraging him to keep something from his _first kill_.

He’s never fired it.

Rapunzel stares over the corpse of the voaghul, her face flecked with a small smattering of bright red blood. She looks pensive, her face oddly mournful as she looks at the downed dragon. Pascal is a glittering light on her shoulder, crooning to her and curling towards her face as he curls close. Her green eyes seem dull as she looks at the body, the voaghul’s blood slowly working down into the polished floorboards of the deck. Her breathing is heavy, like she just ran a marathon, and Hugo can see the tension running tight in her shoulders. 

She holds the gun in her hand like it’s made of glass, delicate but firm as a small puff of smoke gently drifts from the muzzle. Hugo finds one of his hands drifting towards his own weapon, idly thumbing at the safety. Seems the princess isn’t all cotton candy and sugar after all—

Her green eyes snap up to look him dead in the eye. 

Hugo flinches. Something in her eye is wild, her hair messy and her skin stained red. For a second, he’s reminded of Donella. For a second, he waits for her to _snap_. Rapunzel surprises him, then, when her face splits into a wide grin. The melancholy disappears, probably shoved down into the depths of her mind; the Captain sprints forwards and drops her gun to the deck with a _clang_. 

“ _Varian_!” she shouts, hopping over the body of the voaghul and running towards the lead engineer. Varian’s head snaps to her, and Hugo can only just see him put up his hands in warning as she closes in on him.

“ _Don’t you dare_ —” he shrieks, just before she bodily tackles him off his feet. Her arms wrap around the smaller boy like an octopus, the two of them falling to the deck with a _thump_. Hugo steps out of the way as Varian loudly complains, flat on his ass and limp as Rapunzel squeezes him like he’ll disappear if she lets him go. 

“I saw you up there!” she cries, nearly shaking him. “ _What the hell were you thinking_ — with the winds and the— you should have come back down not kept working—”

Varian looks like he’s gone into shock, accepting her frantic babbling as she begins to shake him harder. He limply goes along with her, face set into a blank stare as he just lets her go insane. The Captain finally seems to end her tirade, hugging him close again. Varian finally returns it now that the… aggression is over; Hugo finds himself looking away with a grimace. Sentiment is something that’s always curled his nose, to say the least. 

When he turns back they’ve at least gotten up off the bloody deck, though Varian’s knees still wobble like a newborn deer’s. Varian falls right back over, seemingly making good on his posture’s promise to flop down and act dead for a while, and Hugo snorts at the sight. Rapunzel turns toward him at the noise, and then—

Oh.

She lunges for him just as strongly as she had at Varian, but Hugo at least has the decency to stay standing. He feels himself tense in her grip, her arms tight around his neck. 

“Thank you for taking care of each other,” she whispers in his ear, as if honestly _grateful_. Hugo can feel the stiffness in his spine, the tensing of muscles in his shoulders. He doesn’t do _hugs_. 

“Great, lovely, good job or whatever,” Hugo says, trying once more to free himself from this—this—hugging thing. Sappy bonding moment. Whatever it is, Hugo wants no part of it, thank you _very_ much. “If you could _let go of me_.”

“Oh, sorry!” At last, the Captain lets him go, her smile small and sheepish. Varian squints at them both from the floorboards. “Really, I’m sorry. Cass doesn’t like being hugged either, I should have asked first… just, honestly. You two! I saw the bag fall— I thought you’d followed it!” She shakes her head, and behind them Varian sinks back to the ground, content to be a puddle on the deck. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Hugo dismisses, but it sounds weak even to him. He makes a face.

Rapunzel breathes out a sigh. “Well. Get checked up in the medbay, please, the both of you. Xavier can handle the engines for now. We have time to recover.” She runs her hand through shortened, windswept hair, and then laughs very softly. “Oh, no. Hugo!”

Hugo stills mid-motion, half-done to cleaning his glasses. “W-what?” 

“This was your first day off probation!” 

Hugo almost splutters. What, she _remembers_ that? 

“First day off probation, and a voaghul attacks,” Rapunzel says, as if to herself, and sighs. “Oh, that’s the worst kind of welcome. Double initiation.”

“Initiation,” Hugo says, slowly. 

Down on the floor, still, Varian weakly snickers. “Can you really call yourself one of the crew,” he says, wondering and exhausted and sounding a little giggly, “if you haven’t been almost eaten by a voaghul?”

_“Varian.”_

“What? It’s practically tradition at this point. Those things are like flies.”

Flies, Hugo thinks, thrown. Sure. Why not? Huge, armored, man-eating flies that can almost body-check a ship out of the sky. Fuck, this is _common?_

Rapunzel is laughing again. “I can’t argue with that.” She smiles at Hugo, and Hugo just barely resists the urge to twitch. “Off probation _and_ the voaghul… welcome to the family properly, I guess?”

Hugo bites his cheek against another twitch— _family_ , what a bunch of saps—and while Varian doesn’t see it, face-down as he is, Rapunzel does. Her smile fades a little, turns gentle and a little crooked. Hugo looks away.

“Either way,” Rapunzel says, soft. Hugo’s hands curl to fists. She’s seen his disdain and recognized it for what it is—and of course _she_ does, given Hugo had been stupid enough to speak his mind to her on day two—and yet, once again, she is turning away from it, forgiving him for the disrespect as easy as breathing. “You handled yourself very well. I know this month must have been maddening, but I can say with full confidence now that the _Aphelion_ is lucky to have you as an engineer.” She claps her hands. Hugo looks up. She’s smiling again. “Thank you for your hard work!”

Varian sighs into the floorboards. “I say we deserve pie as payment.”

“Oh shush, you.”

It’s ridiculous, Hugo thinks. _They’re_ ridiculous. Strange, wild, emotional idiots who battle dragons on the monthly and laugh about it after, too eager to get into food fights and too quick to forgive him for starting it, and now—

Hugo laughs.

He doesn’t mean to. It startles him about as much as it startles Rapunzel and Varian; he tries to muffle it in his palm and turns his face away, unnerved by the genuinity. But he can’t stop it, either. It’s just—they’re just—

“You’re crazy,” Hugo says, and presses a hand against his eyes, giggling so hard he can hardly breathe. “You’re all _actually_ crazy!”

He can’t believe he survived that; can’t believe the _ship_ survived, and something about the end of the ordeal makes him feel lightheaded and free. Hugo takes a deep breath and wipes at his eyes, face flushed. Genuine emotion, _ew_. 

When he sees Rapunzel smiling at him, and even Varian watching him with wide eyes and a considering look, Hugo shuffles on his feet and turns away, clearing his throat. “I didn’t sign up for this,” he continues, trying to salvage the situation, but no matter how hard he fights it, he can’t stop from smiling. “Mirror wyverns and climbing up the side of the balloon, and— I didn’t sign up for this. Any of that. So you’re welcome. Never ask me to do it again.”

“I’ll give you a raise,” Rapunzel says, and Hugo whips his head around. 

“Really?” He stops. “W-well, good. You should.”

She grins at him. “But of course.”

The sun has set fully now, and the evening air is crisp and cold with a biting chill. The sky is near pitch-black, so dim he can barely see beyond the railing of the deck. The crew are passing them by, picking up debris, passing around lanterns; soft circles of golden-orange light, bobbing up and down in the dark. 

Despite the cold, there is a warmth here—something he can hardly put a name too. Maybe it's in the way they are all laughing, a little, or maybe it’s the way the light catches on Varian's smile, on the crease of Rapunzel’s eyes, bright and shining in the reflection. Maybe it is the crew, who effortlessly part around them—who catch Hugo’s eyes with smiles and nods and grateful thumbs up. Silent gratitude; quiet belonging. 

It hits him sideways, without warning—a sudden realization. A strange sort of glow, settled warm in his chest. Rapunzel and Varian are talking, laughing still; across the deck Nuru and Yong emerge, looking scraped up but otherwise fine, holding out lanterns. 

Hugo stares at them. Then he looks away. He forces himself to take a step back, then another; at his back Rapunzel calls out, sounding surprised. “Everything okay?”

“Fine,” Hugo makes himself say. The words feel cold. Awkward. “I’m going to go take a nap.”

This time, it’s Varian who speaks up. Something in his voice holds Hugo still; he remembers, sudden and vivid, the bright look in Varian’s eyes when he’d caught Hugo out of the sky. “Well, okay, but…”

Hugo curls his hands to fists. “I’m tired,” he says, and laughs, and looks back at them over his shoulder. It’s not a true laugh. It’s not a true smile. And he can tell Varian notices, because the warmth on Varian's face falters and fades into something sad at the sight of it. “I want a nap. That a crime, goggles?”

Varian’s eyes narrow. Maybe he can hear what Hugo isn’t saying; his fingers have curled too. He looks frustrated. “No, but—”

“It’s fine.” Rapunzel. Varian cuts himself off; Hugo grits his teeth. 

Rapunzel just smiles. Soft and worn and resigned. “Go get some rest,” she says, quiet. “You did good today. We’ll see you tomorrow, Hugo.”

Hugo looks away, unable to meet her eyes, and isn’t sure why. He pushes the feeling back and walks away from them. “Night,” he says, and neither of them answer. 

Something of the warmth has cooled for him. The ship moves around him and Hugo no longer feels like a part of flow. What a relief, right? What a blessing. What kind of idiot would want to feel like a part of a crew like this?

And yet. Even as he walks away, knowing it’s the right thing to do—for a moment, Hugo glances back. At Nuru and Yong, talking in the lantern glow. At Rapunzel, now joined by Cassandra and Eugene, her hands on their shoulders, her eyes warm.

At Varian, who is watching Hugo back—who meets Hugo’s eyes for one moment and then looks away to the evening sky, his smile gone flat and tired. His shoulders slumped. 

Hugo forces his eyes away, and keeps walking. 

He wonders when it got so cold. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Anna-** Ayyyy chapter four off and done!! Didn’t think the skies were totally peaceful, did you? Where’s the fun in that? Ain’t a steampunk AU without some crazy wildlife after all! Now we’re really into the meat and potatoes of this world, no more hand holding, Hugo’s out of probation and so are YOU suckers!! 
> 
> As always thanks for reading, it means a lot to see everyone enjoying themselves!! Iza and I are still having a blast writing these two idiots, and of course our baby _Aphelion_ is always a joy! Catch you next time lads! 
> 
> **Iza-** Haha, what a wild ride! From the start of planning there were a few things Anna and I definitely wanted to add in, and dragons!? WERE OF COURSE ONE. Is it really a steampunk pirate story if a dangerous flying lizard doesn’t appear? I mean, really. 
> 
> We also get our first look at Hugo actually bonding with Varian and the crew! Varian especially. (I like to call that almost-death by falling Hugo’s ‘doki-doki’ moment.) Alas, Hugo and Varian still have stuff to work through… but hey, they’re getting there! 
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! It means a lot! 
> 
> **Themes** : _Storm is Coming_ from Mad Max: Fury Road, _Sirens_ by Bear Ghost, _The Sea Monster_ and _The Roc_ both from the Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas OST, and _Something I Can Never Have_ from the Westworld OST
> 
> Spotify is [here!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5UMJcoECqWJPD05ax3LV3E?si=kBSWLYKkSfOnLzTjCYYtyw)
> 
> Tumblr is [here!](https://varian-and-the-seven-skies.tumblr.com/) Feel free to ask us anything!
> 
> Any thoughts?


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